Robocops and Robbers
by MovinTarget666
Summary: Two Centuries after OCP builds the famed Robocop, Alex Murphy is still upholding the law.
1. The Meetings

**RoboCops and Robbers 1**

"What about Shepard?"

The question is asked by an aging man of African descent, to another man who leaned back against his chair.

"His record does speak for itself," David Anderson nods, "but that could be a problem."

"What do you mean?" Donnel Udina asks, his brow furrowing

"You ever wonder how he got the title, The Butcher of Torfan?"

"I don't need to wonder, I've read the report, and the witness statements from his men and the surviving Batarians that he captured."

"The Council may not approve of him."

"For killing slavers?"

"The Batarians kicked up a hell of a shit storm when he wasn't given a trial."

"And? They left the Council, why should their opinion matter?"

"Well, look at the history of Batarian/Council interaction," Anderson taps his hand against the table in front of him, "Centuries of appeasing them, and then we're the first species and governing body to actually retaliate. We made both of them look bad, and Shepard is who we have to thank for that."

"How is he still only a Commander, anyway?"

"Politics, again," Anderson sighs

On the last third of the table, Admiral Steven Hackett looked between the pair and wondered if he should arrange for them to swap positions or something. Shaking his head, he sighs then says, "so, it seems that Shepard is out, who else do we have?"

"We've got a laundry list of candidates, and almost all of them have something the Council will no doubt hate," Udina tells him, "I say we put forth Shepard's name, he was sponsored by the Spectre, after all."

"We should put someone else in there as well," Anderson suggests, "maybe O'Hara."

"O'Hara is on his way to commanding his own ship," Hackett shakes his head, "he would never agree, the man's a sailor, not an interstellar cop."

Udina blinks as Hackett says this, and starts to rub his chin, "well, if we want to put a cop forth, why not Murphy?"

"Murphy?" Anderson asks, rifling through the stack of dossiers in front of him, trying to find the name

"He's not on the list," Udina tells him, "I mean, why not RoboCop?"

Anderson stops and looks at Udina like he's crazy, "I thought the council hated him?"

"They did," Hackett agrees, "but that was twenty years ago."

"Now he's a respected member of C-Sec, and OCP helped fund two of the three current Councilor's campaigns."

"So you think they'll go for it?"

"I do."

"Then we put both names forward?"

"We do."

It takes them only an hour to draft their proposals and submit the applications. It takes two for the Council and the Spectre office to get back to them. The three men are called to the office of the Salarian councilor, which possessed the biggest screen so that they could all stare at the same thing.

The Asari Councilor, Tevos, was the first to speak, "These are your applicants?"

As she spoke, the profiles of John Shepard and Alex Murphy were displayed on the massive screen. Shepard was a clean shaven man with an angular face, a perpetual scowl of passive anger playing across his lips. Murphy's expression on the other hand, carried a passive, bordering on serene smile on his.

"They are," Udina nods, "Shepard was recommended by Spectre Nihlus Kyrik, and Murphy has been a man of the Law for close to two centuries."

"He also isn't directly affiliated with the Alliance," Hackett adds, "his first love is the law, so there is less likely to be a conflict of interest."

"Are you trying to sell us on this Commander Shepard, or the RoboCop?" The Turian Councilor, Sparatus, asks.

"Both," Udina tells him, "we believe both would make excellent candidates for the Spectre program."

The Salarian Councilor, Demos, leans towards Sparatus and notes, "Detective Murphy current partner of former Spectre candidate Garrus Vakarian, work well together, may be able to convince Vakarian to join if we get the cyborg."

Sparatus's eye ridges rise at the information, and he nods, "I could see that working, Tevos?"

The Asari presses her hands together and thinks, "I believe it would be prudent to see what both can manage, this Shepard seems he could be a Spectre on the lines of Saren, if given the chance. The RoboCop on the other hand could very easily become a second Jondum."

The other two councilors look like they enjoy the ideas, and they nod along with her. The humans remain silent, waiting for the verdict, but growing more assured with each moment that one or both of their selections would be chosen.

The councilors finish their small meeting and Tevos, ever the voice of the council, tells the human representatives, "we will have both of your candidates observed."

Udina nods in satisfaction and stands, "Thank you, councilors, we await word from the Spectres chosen to evaluate them."

Tevos nods and smiles as the three humans stand and exit. Once the doors seal behind them, she turns to her fellow councilors and asks, "real opinions?"

"I think Detective Murphy would make an excellent Spectre," Demos tells them, seriously, "loose ties with human government, loyal to the law, and friendly with other species."

"I like the other candidate, too," Sparatus tells her, "But if we give him the position then we invite some retaliation from the Batarians. If we do pick him, we're going to have to be terrible to him so the Batarians are convinced we're only accepting him because of human pressure."

Tevos sighs and rubs her eyes, "True enough, I truly despise those four eyed monsters."

Demos raises an eyebrow and the Asari glares at him, "You know full well if it weren't for the mess that our predecessors left for us in regards to the Batarian situation, we would have declared war by now!"

"I know, I'm just not used to you talking so bluntly," the Salarian tells her

"We're in your office, not mine," She reminds him, "everything I'm saying, your people already know. I can't say what I want in my office without the Matriarchs thinking I'm a war monger and calling for a change in power."

Sparatus snorts, Asari had always been in favor of unreasonable peace, and to meet one that was not so keen on the idea was always fun. He bet Tevos had been one of those girls that was a mercenary rather than a stripper in her formative centuries.

"Regardless of our opinions on the Batarians, we are agreed?" he then asks, so as to move the conversation along

Tevos and Demos nod, and the Turian claps his hands together, "So, who shall we send to observe Commander Shepard?"

"Nihlus put his name forth, he should be the one to observe him in action," Tevos tells him

"And it will give us an excuse to go over the Normandy designs, as well," Demos notes, reading from the dossier, "Commander Shepard has been assigned as Executive Officer to the Normandy, under Captain Anderson."

"The same Anderson that was in this meeting?" Tevos asks, "The same one that was the last human candidate?"

"The very same."

"They knew we would agree to Shepard."

"No, actually, it looks like all of their possible selections for Spectre status were assigned to the Normandy," Sparatus notes as he opens the file for himself, "It would make sense that for their new frigate design they'd want only the best as crew."

Tevos nods, seeing that the matter of Shepard's observer had been settled, and asks, "And the RoboCop?"

"We can observe him ourselves," Demos suggests, "We have years of collected footage on him, and we can observe him in action right now."

"I think I prefer him, honestly," Sparatus notes, "We know he won't need to come to us for funding, and we won't have to refuse him."

"A definite benefit," Tevos nods, thinking of how much money annually travels into the bank accounts of Omni Consumer Products, and by extension, its CEO and President Alex Murphy.

On the subject of the Detective, he was currently staring down a Krogan Warlord.

The massive red crested Urdnot Wrex glared down at the human in fancy armor and demanded, "What've you got on me, human?"

"You, Warlord Wrex, are a suspect in the murder of one Froleus Gri'ol," is the reply, a metallic hum echoing his voice.

"Who?" Wrex demands

"This man," there is the glow of an omni-tool, and the image of Turian in a posh suit is shown

Wrex blinks, furrows his brow, narrows his eyes, and shakes his head, "Never seen him, or killed him. Look, human…"

"Detective Murphy," the now named human supplies helpfully

"Detective," Wrex addresses the man by his title, after all, any man who can beat him in a contest of strength was worthy of respect, "I've never seen that Turian before, and I think you're keeping me here so I don't go after Fist."

The image disappears and Murphy leans forward, clasping his hands together and nodding, "I will admit, that you being a suspect in the murder of Mr. Gri'ol has proved useful. And the fact that we are legally entitled to hold you for forty-eight hours gives us time to shore up our investigation of the criminal known as Fist. But the two are not connected."

"Oh yeah?" Wrex raises an eyebrow, a certain level of respect sounding through his voice at a cop so willing to play the system to his advantage

"Indeed," Murphy nods, and then passes a drawing across the table, "A witness to the murder of Mr. Gri'ol gave a description of the attacker, and this is what our sketch artist was able to make of it."

Wrex picks up the image and sees that the image seems to be a generic Krogan, with the exception of the complete carapace. He had to admit that there weren't many Krogan as old as him, and certainly not old enough to have a fused head piece, especially not on the Citadel. He huffs, "You've got nothing but that to go off?"

"We have claw prints and weapon's discharge residue as well, but both of those take time to process." Murphy tells him, "As it is, we are bringing in all high profile Krogan that could match the description."

Wrex narrowed his eyes, and a thought comes to him, "Fist's bodyguard has a fused carapace."

"He does," Murphy nods, "And he will be brought in as soon as we're done here."

Wrex cracks a smile, "You know he won't go with you quietly."

"I suspect as much," Murphy nods, "But I must uphold the law."

"And if things get violent?"

"Then I'll have to bring in Mr. Fist as well for having an unstable employee in a public resaurant."

"Which will put him in the same cell as me."

Murphy tilts his head, and nods, "I suppose so. Unfortunate, but C-Sec has indeed been forced to make due with a single wide style holding cell for the last few years."

Wrex chuckles, "Alright, Detective, I'll stay quiet."

"Thank you, Warlord," Murphy smiles serenely at him in gratitude. He then stands, moves around his table, and the sound of whirring electronics accompanies his motions as he walks to the door.

On the other side is a uniformed Salarian patrolman, "Sir?"

"Please escort Warlord Wrex into the overnight cell, Holst," Murphy tells the officer

"Yes, sir," the Salarian nods, and then holds the door open, "Warlord, if you would follow me."

The Krogan and the Salarian disappear around a corner as Murphy's partner enters the office, "You managed to talk down a Krogan Warlord, never thought I'd see the day."

Murphy smirks, "Please, Garrus, have a little faith!"

Garrus Vakarian rolls his eyes, "I have plenty of faith, just not that much."

Murphy snorts, then open s his desk and pulls out his gun. His leg opens and he slides the weapon into its holster, "So, you ready to piss off a crime boss?"

Garrus shakes his head at his partner's cavalier attitude, then opens his own desk and pulls out his weapon. Attaching it to his side he turns to nod at Murphy, "Let's get it over with."


	2. Chora's Den

**Robocops and Robbers 2**

Tevos, Sparatus, and Demos watch the vid screen with interest as the Robocop and Detective Vakarian make their way out of the Presidium and towards the establishment known as Chora's Den. Demos is the first to speak, "Detective Murphy looks different from his profile picture."

He brings up the image in question, showing the profile picture with the smiling face, but the technology surrounding the face was far from perfect, with tubes and wires sticking out of it. The body was no different, with the full body picture of the Robocop featuring the cyborg in what could easily be equated to plate armor. There was also the flip on and off visor and helmet, those had been missing from both photos.

"We recieved that from his previous posting at the Detroit Police Department," Tevos informs him, "They are more than a century old."

"Ah, upgrades," Demos nods in understanding

"Exactly," Sparatus nods, "From what I understand, his original model could barely move, and if it got knocked onto its back, he was shit out of luck."

Demos hisses, "not good."

"Not good indeed," the Turian nods, "It took him gaining control of OCP to get upgraded."

"Ah, yes, OCP," Tevos nods, "Their board actually sent us the latest models of drones for our perusal."

"We should look at them later, then," Demos notes, "Though how a product managed to gain possession of the company that built him is still lost to me."

Tevos raises an eyebrow, "Would you like the full summary, or would you prefer to watch as C-Sec's finest do their jobs?"

"Would rather watch him in action," Demos agrees, "Can always ask him later."

All three pairs of eyes turn to the screen, a security camera showing Murphy and Vakarian stepping up to the entrance of the bar. There is a moment of shakiness as the camera dismounts from the wall and cloaks to start hovering after the pair as they walk in.

"So how are we gonna play this?" Garrus asks

"The usual," Robocop tells him with a smirk

"So, we're going to ask him politely if he wouldn't mind coming with us, and when he refuses we're going to have to fight half the bar?"

"Sounds about right."

"You know, he could just come quietly," Garrus points out hopefully

"Do you really believe that?" Murphy asks him, an eyebrow raising with the question

Garrus just sighs

"I thought not," Murphy chuckles, and then steps up to the massive Krogan that guards the door to Fist's office, "Morning citizen."

The Krogan grunts at him, the usual greating for people he didn't care for one way or another.

Murphy smiles, "I'm affraid that I'm going to have to ask you to come with me, sir. You're a person of interest in a murder investigation and we need you to come to C-Sec headquarters for a line-up identification."

The Krogan glares down at the Robocop, "Fuck off, C-Sec."

"Sir, there is no need for that language," Murphy chastizes him, "And I'm sorry to say that I can't, as you say 'fuck off.' We have a warrant calling for your presence, if you would like me to show it to you?"

Garrus, for his part, was casually throwing his eyes over the crowd as the Krogan growled a response. Six men and two of the dancers drew his attention almost immediately; their eyes were focused on the scene playing out between the Krogan and Robocop with focused interest. four of the men were also stroking obvious weapons, and not in the sense that the Salarian in the corner was demonstrating to the disgust of one of the dancers.

The conversation behind him was proceeding exactly as he had expected it to; Murphy was calmly telling the Krogan that 'yes, I am perfectly within my rights to take you in, all of the paperwork has been done. In triplicate.' The Krogan on the other hand was growing more frustrated, because he was the second type of Krogan to Wrex's first. He had survived eight centuries by telling things to fuck off and killing anything that didn't.

But here was a human he could do neither of those things to, and his brain was rebelling. Unfortunately for him, his brain chose to do as most brains do when they short circuit, which was act on instinct.

Murphy caught the Krogan's fist with one of his own, and silence falls in the bar. With the obvious exception of the looped stripping music, not a being made a noise. Then Murphy uttered one of his many trademarked phrases, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

And then the guns are pulled.

The six men disguised as patrons all pull out variations on the theme of 'small but powerful,' while the strippers dove behind the bar and came up with a pair of Phaeston assault rifles. Garrus, for his part, had pulled his pistol and was aiming at the closest of the armed men.

The Krogan didn't have a gun drawn, though he did have one on him. It was pressed tightly between his eyes, and he was staring into the battle visor of Robocop. The visor then turns to pan around the room, "Everyone who wants no part in what is inevitably about to happen, please step outside in an orderly fashion."

And like that, the room was empty of all but the frozen eleven of the stand off.

"You will be given one chance," the metallically echoing voice of robocop bounces through the room, "Drop your weapons and place your hands on the backs of your heads, or you will be deemed as hostile and we will be forced to use lethal force."

The only one to listen to him, oddly enough, was the Krogan. Another way the big fella had survived eight centuries was by recognizing a fight he couldn't win, and there was no way he was going to win against the Robocop, who he had recognized as soon as the visor popped out.

"Thank you for your co-operation," Robocop tells him, and then the bullets start to fly.

Garrus dives into a booth and upturns a table to use as cover. He waits until the first sound of Murphy's gun to discharge, and then pops out of cover, takes aim, and squeezes the trigger. His target, a particularly rough looking Batarian, falls to the ground, a hole between all four eyes. Garrus ducks back into cover as attention returns to him from a few of the closer thugs.

Robocop ignores the shots being fired at him in favor of locking onto a target. His hand flies up, and his omni-tool glows as he activates an invasive program. There are a series of clicks as three of the thugs try and pull the triggers of their OCP issue heavy pistols. The clicking keeps going for a few seconds before the weapons detonate, and take those three out of the fight.

Robocop's gun turns and his aim locks onto a shifty looking human trying to edge around Garrus's cover. A three round burst shatters the man's shields and his right arm. The Turian screams in pain and drops his weapon as he falls to his knees. The scream ends as Garrus ducks out of cover to sock him in the face as hard as he can.

Looking around, Garrus can see that of the eight men, six were down, and the other two were throwing their guns away and waving their hands in surrender. The Strippers with the assualt rifles had just vanished, probably made it out the door once thy saw the tides turning.

"That went well," He notes

"It did," Murphy nods happily, "I was expecting something far worse."

"What were you expecting?" Garrus asks

"I was expecting the Asari to use Biotics, for one," Murphy informs him

"Ah, true, that could have been something."

"What the hell is going on out here!?" A new voice shouts, and the detectives turn to see a human and a young Quarian woman exiting the back office.

"Mr. Fist?" Detective Murphy asks as he slips cuffs around the Krogan's wrists

"Yeah? Why are you cuffing my bouncer?"

"He was acting in contempt of a legally issued warrant," Murphy opens his omni-tool and the warrant pops up. He shows it to the suspected crime boss, and the man sighs.

"Of course he did."

"And then two of your employees and six of your patrons pulled weapons on use," the Detective continues, "I'm afraid that you will have to come with us as well."

"What? Why?" Fist now looks less like a collected businessman and more like a flighty loan shark

"Chora's Den is not licensed to hold weapons heavier than pistol level, and your two employees pulled Phaeston assault rifles from behind your bar."

Fist gulps, "Look, officer -"

"Detective."

"Detective, sorry, mayber there's a way for us to work this out?"

"I'm sure there is," Murphy nods, and turns to Garrus, "You okay with me escorting these two to headquarters while you finish booking the rest of them? We should really… clear things up."

Garrus looks around at the various crumpled examples of scum, and then to the Quarian who was doing her best to not get seen, then back to Murphy, "Yeah, I've got it. Pick up shuttle on the way?"

"It'll be here in ten," Murphy nods

Garrus nods and waves his partner off. The door closes behind Murphy, Fist, and the Krogan bouncer as Garrus starts to cuff all of the surviving thugs. When he finishes, he stands and looks over at the Quarian.

"Miss, are you alright?" He asks

"What?" She seems to break from a thought at his question and turns to him, blinking

"I asked if you were alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine," She tells him, nodding jerkily

Garrus's mandibles twitch and he rolls his eyes, "Of course you are, why else would you be meeting with Fist."

"I did not have much of a choice!" the Quarian growls, "It isn't like you people are any help!"

"What?" Garrus blinks, "What did I do?"

"Not you! Your people! C-Sec!" The quarian waves wildly at him, "And now the one guy I know can get me protection is off to prison!"

"Protection?" Garrus asks, "Who do you need protection from?"

The Quarian glares at him, "Now you care?"

Garrus nods, slowly, and she sighs. Opening up her omni-tool, she presses a few buttons and suddenly an audio file is playing, in the voice of Spectre Saren Arterius, "Eden Prime was a great victory now we are one step closer to finding the Conduit." And then a female voice responds, "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

"What happened to Eden Prime?" Garrus asks after a minute

He did not know it, but that same question was being asked by the Councilors watching from the cloaked drone. Sparatus is the first to find an answer, and tells the others, "I just received a message from Spectre Kryik. He and the Normandy are on the way to recover a Prothean beacon from Eden Prime, and he says that the colony is under some form of attack."

Tevos blinks, "Why is Nihlus already on the Normandy? I thought it wasn't set to depart for another two days?"

"Apparently they rushed through the checks when they were give the orders to pick up the beacon," Demos tells her after a moment, "Ship currently missing most of its Marine detachment. Only chance that there was a full squad already aboard when ship took off. Among them was Spectre Candidate Shepard."

"How long did it take them to reach the colony?" Tevos asks, knowing that Anderson was the Captain of the ship and he had only left them a few hours ago.

"Record time, apparently," Sparatus snorts

Tevos rolls her eyes at his snark, but then straightens and notes, "That Quarian has an audio file, clearly of Saren and, if I am not mistaken, Matriarch Benezia, talking about winning on Eden Prime. And we've just received word that the same colony is under attack? This will not end well."

"You think she's lying?"

"No, I think she's telling the truth. She said that she needed protection because of that recording," Tevos points out, "Clearly, someone does not want it getting out. My immediate suspicion goes to Saren, who is the subject of the recording."

"So, on the word of a suit rat, we are going to investigate one of our most trusted Spectres?" Sparatus demands

Tevos gives him a reproachful look at his language, then shakes her head, "We are going to wait until there is more information out of Eden Prime before acting."

"Won't have to wait long," Demos sighs, "I just received a message from Councilor Udina. Eden Prime was attacked by the Geth, Nihlus is dead, and Candidate Shepard is accusing Saren of the attack."

All three sigh, not looking forward to the rest of their day at all.


	3. Interrogations

**Robocops and Robbers 3**

(AN: For clarification: Robocop timeline is from the original series of films, but he looks more like his 2014 blue iteration because of more than a century of upgrades)

"Murphy, we've got a problem," Garrus's voice echos in Robocop's audio processor.

The cyborg presses a finger to his ear, "What's the situation?"

"The Quarian," Garrus starts, "Girl named Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, has information that needs to be investigated. She says she went to Fist to exchange the information for protection."

"Who did she need protection from?"

"I'll tell you when we get to headquarters," Garrus tells him, "I requisitioned a squad car from the patrol men who came to relieve me, we'll be there in five."

"Got it," Murphy lowers his finger, and stares through the line-up beyond the one way mirror. Six Krogan stand against a wall, glaring daggers at each other. Turning his head, he nods to the officer at the door, and she opens it to let in an Asari in tattered rags.

The girl was clearly terrified of where she was, and even more scared of having to finger the perpetrator of the murder she had been unfortunate enough to witness. Her steps were slow, cautious, and one in three of them even went backwards. Murphy gave her an encouraging smile and held his hand out to her. She cautiously takes it and turns her eyes to the mirror.

One by one, her eyes take in the details of the Krogan, and one by one they are dismissed until she comes to the Bouncer of Chora's Den. She licks her lips, then raises her hand to point at him, "That's the one."

Murphy nods, and indicates for the Asari to go with the officer at the door, "Please, Officer Delasa will take you to a waiting room, and get you something to eat."

The Asari brightens up, a soft smile breaking through her melancholy, "Thank you."

"And hey," the Detective extends a blue card to her, "I want you to call this number, they should be able to help you out."

The Asari takes the card, and looks down at it as she was ushered out of the room. A solid blue the same sheen as the Robocop's armor, it had the large letters 'OCP' printed on the front, and a small tagline beneath that said, 'Doing everything we can, for you. Since 2014.' Bellow that was a Omni-address to call or message the company. On the back of the card was a series of numbers and letters that she couldn't make heads or tendrils of.

A few minutes later, the Asari was asleep in comfortable couch, and Robocop was sitting across from the Bouncer. The Krogan did not look happy, or comfortable in the small chair that came with the interrogation room that they were in.

"I am required by law to tell you that everything from this moment will be recorded," Murphy tells the Krogan, "I am also obligated to inform you that you have the right to an advocate. If you do not have one, C-Sec is willing to provide you with one for the duration of this interrogation."

"So this is an interrogation?"

"It is, I am sorry if that was not made clear before this moment," Murphy tells him

"Why are you interrogating me?"

"A witness has fingered you as the murderer of one Froleus Gri'ol."

"Who?"

Murphy shows the Krogan the picture.

"Oh, him."

"So you are familiar with the deceased?"

"Yeah, he was one of the Broker's local goons."

"By 'Broker' are you referring to the Shadow Broker?"

"Yeah."

The Detective nods, and leans forward so that his can point the index fingers of his clasped hands at the Krogan, "The way I see it, you have just confessed to knowing an agent of an illegal intelligence agency and not informing the authorities."

"I did?"

"You did," Robocop nods, "Luckily I know how you can get out of the hole you have just dug for yourself, and maybe even the one made by killing the man."

"What is it?" The Krogan was many things, among them was a man who knew when to cave and give up everything he had on other people for a chance to not spent a century behind bars.

"You are the Bouncer of Chora's Den, and by extension you are privy to all of the owner's secrets," Murphy points out

"I'm more than that," The Krogan snorts, "Fist doesn't leave the damn club without me by his side. That's how I knew that Gri'ol guy was a Broker agent."

"So you have direct knowledge in the activities of an agent of the Shadow Broker. Two, in fact" Murphy tells him, "If you are willing to part with this information, I may be able to speak with a judge and get you a reduced sentence."

"You can get me a reduced sentence for murder?" The Krogan blinks

"Three Centuries ago the Council declared all agents of the Shadow Broker to be enemies of the Citadel," Murphy tells him, then waves his hand, "This was still in the days when the Shadow Broker was thought to be a Geth plot, but the law stands. And as the law stands, you did nothing but kill the agent of a hostile power."

"So..?"

"At most, what you did was act as a vigilante," Murphy supplies

"But that means I'm in the clear, anyway," The Krogan points out, a smug grin on his face

"I'm afraid not," Murphy replies with his own smile, "You have already confessed to knowingly working for an agent of the Shadow Broker, Mr. Fist. That, by extension of the law, makes you an agent of that same hostile power."

"Fuck."

"Language, please," Murphy chastises, then continues, "However, as I said, I am willing to speak with the judge, in exchange for the information that you have on your employer."

The Krogan releases a massive sigh and rubs his crest with both hands, "What do you want to know?"

"How long has Fist been an agent of the Shadow Broker, to your knowledge?"

"He was one for ten years," The Krogan says after a moment of thought, "That Gri'ol guy came by the Den a few Weeks after Fist opened shop."

"Was?" Murphy raises an eyebrow at the word, catching it where most would have simply let it pass

"Yeah, was," the Bouncer nods, "Few days ago he got a call from some Turian with a robot arm, and got offered a few hundred thousand to sell out any Quarians that came to the Shadow Broker for protection."

"How many Quarians go to the Shadow Broker for protection?"

"I've only ever seen one, that kid what was in Fist's office when everything went down."

Murphy nods, and as he tries to think of what to ask next, Garrus's voice comes back into his audio, "Show his a picture of Spectre Saren Arterius and ask if that was the Turian. I just sent you the picture. Also, hi, Me and Tali are on the other side of the glass."

He doesn't hesitate, opening the file and showing the Spectre's picture, "Was this the Turian?"

The Krogan narrows his eyes at the picture, then nods, "Yeah, that was him. Smooth talker, but I could tell he didn't like Fist much."

"Why do you say that?"

"He looked at Fist like most of my people look at Salarians and Turians."

"Hateful resentment?"

"Exactly."

Murphy nods, and before he can continue, Garrus is back on, "I'm sending in Detective Bailey to continue the interrogation. I need you out here, now."

Not missing a beat, Murphy stands, "Thank you for your cooperation, Detective Bailey will continue this interview."

"It isn't an interrogation any more?"

"You're cooperating."

"Oh, good."

Murphy moves to the door, which slides open to let in a tall human with greying hair. The men nod to each other as they pass, and the doors slide closed again. As usual, Robocop gains some interested stares as he strides through the headquarters towards his and Garrus's office. Three floor later and he is pressing the hologram to open the door.

Inside, he finds Garrus pacing and the Quarian girl, Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, playing with her omni-tool. At his entrance, both turn their attention to him, "What's going on?"

Garrus turns to Tali and nods, and the girl presses a button on her Omni-tool, and the audio recording began to play, "Eden Prime was a great victory now we are one step closer to finding the Conduit." Said Saren and then Matriarch Benezia responds, "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

Murphy blinks, "What is that?"

"A recording I pulled from a Geth I disabled," Tali explains, "The Fleet had gotten word that the Geth were starting to emerge from the Perseus Veil, and issued a warning to all Quarians on their pilgrimage. I decided to investigate, and I found one with this in it's memory banks."

"Those voices belong to Matriarch Beneziah and Saren Arterius," Murphy notes

"That was the female?" Garrus asks, "I only recognized Saren's voice

"I've met her several times," Murphy explains, "Her daughter is one of OCP's top archaeologists, and I met her when she tried to approach the company and get them to fire the girl."

"OCP has archaeologists?" Garrus blinks, and then shakes his head, "Nevermind. The important thing is that Saren and the Matriarch just confessed to doing something on Eden Prime."

"Any idea what they did?"

"The news broke while you were interrogating the Krogan," Garrus says, and turns on the vid screen in their office. After surfing through a few channels, he stops on a news station. The sound was muted, but the images and subtitles said enough.

"A Geth attack on Eden Prime, and you got that recording from a disabled Geth. This does not look good."

"We need to take this to the Council," Garrus tells him

"We need to take this to the Executor," Murphy corrects, "He will decide the proper course of action."

"What!?" Garrus demands, "You know that Pallin would kiss the ground Saren walked on, and you know he hates humans! Why would he listen to us?"

"If he doesn't, then we can go to the Council with the information," Murphy tells his partner, raising a placating hand.

"There is no need, Detective Murphy," A new voice comes from the vid screen, attracting the attention of both detectives and the Quarian.

On the screen was the Council.

Garrus and Murphy exchanged surprised glances, then turn back to look at the screen. Garrus is the first to speak, "Councilors? How can we help you?"

"The human ambassador and several witnesses have demanded a hearing against Saren Arterius," Councilor Sparatus tells them, "They have an eye witness report claiming that Saren was leading the attack against Eden Prime, as well as the murder of fellow Spectre Nihlus Kryik. You will submit your evidence as well."

"Thank you, gentlemen, for going above and beyond the call of duty in this matter," Councilor Tevos tells them.

"We expect you, all three of you, to report to the audience hall at sixteen hundred," Councilor Demos tells them.

"Yes, Sir," Murphy nods, and then turns to Garrus and Tali as the transmission is cut, "It seems that we don't need to go to the Executor after all."

"Is this normal for you two?" Tali finally asks

"No," Garrus shakes his head, "I have to say that this is a first."

"I've grown used to things like that," Murphy tells her, "A few centuries in Law enforcement, and a few deaths take the edge off of most situations, even extraordinary ones."

"Deaths?" Tali asks, looking him over, and finally understanding dawns, "You're the Robocop! The cyborg!"

Murphy nods, "I am."

"How are you so… normal?" Tali asks after a second of deliberation, "The vids of your exploits don't show you acting so sentient?"

"When I was remade the first time, there were more electronic checks on my personality," Murphy explains, leaning against his desk, "I could have been compared to a combat drone VI that just leached experience from the information center that was my human brain. But that wouldn't have lasted very long, and eventually my more human personality gained dominance. It took a while though, years after those promotional films were made."

"Oh," Tali nods, then asks, "What's it like, being a cyborg?"

"Much, I imagine, like being trapped in your suit," He tells her, "I have only the slightest sensation of touch, must eat nutrient paste, and a few other uncomfortable details that i'm sure you can relate to. On the plus side, I am also a highly advanced super-computer and the most skilled law enforcer in sixteen systems, and I am comparing myself to Asari in that as well."

"Bit of a boast, isn't that?" Tali asks

"He started in Detroit," Garrus tells her, amusement playing through his tone

"I don't get it?"

"Neither do I," Garrus confides.


	4. The Hearing

**Robocops and Robbers 4**

It was with a large degree of trepidation that Robocop, Garrus, and Tali entered the elevator that would take them up to the Audience Hall. For Murphy and Garrus, it was an uncomfortable reminder of how they met, when the Council had determined that after six partners trying to order Robocop around like a drone or hack into him to see how he ticked, that the best option would be to place a rookie detective under him. Garrus hadn't been very gracious, or nice, when he'd heard the news and begrudgingly accepted. Thankfully things had cooled, and they were actually friends now.

For Tali, going up to see the Council was a lot like going to see a trio of dismissive gods. The Council had banished her people into the nether regions of space and doomed them to their suits, so the comparison was easy to make for her. She feared and hoped and a thousand other things as the elevator slowly rose.

Eventually, her fear was gone, and in its place was incredulity, "How slow are these elevators?"

"Very," Murphy supplies, "Garrus and me have been debating the reasons for years."

"Our current theory is that it's a calming tactic," Garrus tells her, "Get an angry ambassador in this elevator and make him ride it all the way up, and if he's still angry when he reaches the top, the situation is serious."

"Or he's a Batarian," Murphy adds

"Well, yeah, but have you ever seen a calm batarian?" Garrus asks

"I've seen less angry ones," The cyborg tells him

"Doesn't count, that's still angry.

"I've seen one," Tali pipes up

Both men turn to her, surprise visible on their faces. Tali smirks under her mask, and says no more.

"Awe, come on!" Garrus whines, which gets a smirk out of Murphy, "When?"

"Nope," Tali shakes her head

Garrus groans as Murphy chuckles, "I think she has your number."

"Oh, sure, pick on me," Garrus snarks back, "Let's see how well you can handle getting shot at on your own."

"I can handle it quite well," Murphy points out

"I can't!" Tali squeeks

"Oh don't worry. You, I'm keeping around," Garrus tells her as the elevator finally stops and the doors open, "I want to hear about that calm Batarian."

"Calm Batarian?" A female voice asks from their left. Turning, they see three humans, two men and a woman. The woman, adorned in pink armor, walks over, "You've met a calm Batarian?"

"That's like seeing a shooting star!" One of the men snorts, his face momentarily shifting from a perpetual frown to a disbelieving smile

"I have, and they don't believe me!" Tali moans, then sticks out her hand in the human gesture of greeting, "Hello, My name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams," The woman smiles, taking the hand and shaking it once, "Call me Ash."

"Call me Tali," Tali tells her, then she smiles under her mask at the two men, "And.. uh.. Your friends?"

"Oh, right," The man who had spoken steps forward, "Commander John Shepard."

Tali shakes his hand and then the last man, who identifies himself as, "Major Kaidan Alenko."

"Well, I'm Tali, like I already said, and these are Detectives Garrus Vakarian and Alex Murphy."

Hands are shaken all around, and then Shepard tilts his head and asks, "Are you the ones with the additional evidence against Saren? Udina told us to wait for two C-Sec and a Quarian, so I'd put money on you being the ones we want."

"We are," Murphy nods, "I take it you are the witnesses?"

"We are," The Commander nods

"Then we should not keep the Council waiting," Murphy says, and sets off up the three flights of steps to the meeting room.

"Hang on," Ash mutters before looking over at Kaiden, "Is that Robocop?"

"I think so," the Major agrees in his usual breathy whisper of a voice

"He is," Garrus tells them, having been a few steps behind them, "He's also my partner."

"Huh, how's that working out for you?" Ash asks

"Pretty well," Garrus tells her, "He's a fun guy once you get to know him, and he's nowhere near as stiff as he is in the old vids."

"Good to hear," the Sergeant nods, and then falls silent when they see the Council and the twenty foot tall hologram of Saren glaring down at them, "Is that meant to be terrifying?"

"No idea," Garrus tells her, "The hologram thing is new."

"Power play?"

"Probably," Garrus shrugs, "Half the Council's job is making sure everyone thinks they're better than everyone else."

"So they don't actually believe that the Turians, Asari, and Salarians are better than everyone else?"

"Oh, no, they totally believe that," Garrus waves a hand, "They just think that everyone else needs to pick up the pace."

"Bit arrogant, isn't it?"

"If they don't act like it, they lose their jobs," Murphy tells her, having slowed and turned to address her, "The political stability of known space is at stake here. Rocking the boat could lead to disastrous consequences. Just look at the Krogan and their situation; they rocked the boat, and are still suffering for it."

"That's… terrifying," Ash gulps, not the least bit reassured by the smiles Murphy gives her before joining Ambassador Udina, Captain Anderson, and Commander Shepard up on the extended dias.

"This meeting of the Council is now in session," Councilor Tevos announces, before turning to Councilor Sparatus

The Turian Councilor takes up the speech and says, "Today, a troubling issue has been brought before the Council, an accusation against one of our Spectres."

"Spectre Saren Arterius has been accused of murdering a fellow Spectre, Nihlus Kryik," Councillor Demos takes up, "and an unprovoked attack on the Human Colony of Eden Prime with the assistance of the Geth."

"Spectre Arterius, how do you plead?" Tevos asks

"Not guilty," The Spectre sounds all kinds of angry, and there was something else in his voice, one that only Murphy and Garrus could really recognize, the sound of cybernetics whirring in tandem with the voice, "And I find them insulting as well, Nihlus was a friend."

"And you used that to shoot him in the back of the head!" Captain Anderson shouts

"Captain, restrain yourself," Detective Murphy tells the man, "An outburst of sufficient vitriol could have this case thrown out on insubstantial grounds."

Anderson looks Sharply at Robocop, swallows his anger, and nods.

"Ah, Anderson," Saren chuckles, "How have you been? It's been what, twenty years?"

Anderson looks like he wants to shout again, but Shepard grabs his shoulder and shakes his head, and the Captain nods.

"Councilors, we would like to advance to the submission of evidence," Murphy speaks, "The accused knows the crimes, and is now simply stalling in hopes of raising an emotional recourse in order to have the case thrown on grounds of a speciest case. The Prosecution denies this allegation, completely."

Tevos, Sparatus, and Demos exchange glances, glad that they had chosen to tell the Detective to come up and present the evidence himself. The Asari nods, "Please, Detective Murphy, Proceed."

"Very well," Murphy nods, then turns back to Shepard, "Commander Shepard, if you would please submit your evidence?"

"Of Course," Shepard nods, and opens his omnitool, "Myself and my team were split from Specter Kryik at the start of our mission, with the spectre deciding to act as forward scout. We advanced through the remains of the Prothean dig sight, losing one of our team members and rescuing Sergeant Williams from Geth attackers. When we reached the dig site, we found survivors of the attack that pointed us to the spaceport to find the beacon."

"They also told us that a Turian was leading the Geth. We were sceptical, but decided it would be best to warn Nihlus regardless. Before we could, he radioed that he thought he saw a friendly and was shutting off his coms. Approximately half a minute later we heard the sound of a Carnifax Heavy Pistol being discharged, a single time."

Shepard then taps a few more buttons on his omnitool, and the sound of a gunshot was heard, "Alliance forensics identified the weapon as such, we did not know it was a Carnifax at the time. All we knew was that there had been a single, loud shot, and we hadn't heard from Nihlus in too long."

"When we investigated, we located Spectre Kryik with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. While Major Alenko was performing a quick analysis, myself and Sergeant Williams were alerted to a presence behind a pile of crates. The source of the noise turned out to be a man by the name of Powell, who had seen the incident and told us that a second Turian had shot Nihlus. When pressed, he told us that Nihlus referred to the other Turian as 'Saren' and let his guard down. They spoke, and when Nihlus turned his back to Saren, Saren drew his weapon and fired point blank into the base of Nihlus's skull."

Shepard lowered his omnitool and stood at attention.

"That's it?" Saren scoffs, "That's all you have? Hearsay from a terrified human who probably couldn't even tie his shoes?"

"That is incorrect," Murphy tells the Spectre, shutting the man up, "I and Detective Garrus Vakarian also have evidence to bring to bear. Tali, if you would please step up?"

Tali gulped behind her mask, but stepped forward as Robocop introduced her, "This is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, she is on her pilgrimage. Miss Zorah, if you would explain the purpose of a pilgrimage for those who do not know?"

Tali nods, and then explains, "When a Quarian reaches adulthood, they are sent out into the galaxy to try and find something useful for the Migrant Fleet, so that it can stay operational. You can bring back anything; goods, ships, parts, information."

"And it was information that you decided to bring back, correct?"

"It was," Tali nods, "My people have always kept close eye on the home system, watching for Geth, and every Quarian on Pilgrimage had received a warning that the Geth had gone beyond the veil. I thought that I could maybe find one of the Geth and pull some information from its datadrive."

"Did you succeed?"

"I did," Tali nods

"And if you recovered information from a Geth like you planned, why did you not bring it back to your people?"

"Because it did not involve my people," She tells Murphy, finding it so much easier if she imagined it was just him that was listening to her, and not every available ear in the galaxy that caught the Council on vid, "The information I recovered had the voice of Spectre Arterius on it, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it to the Citadel, the Council."

"How did you know it was Saren's voice?"

"Before we are sent out on Pilgrimage, we are given a list of voices and audio recordings of people we should never, ever, trust. I think most of them are Spectres."

Murphy raises an eyebrow at that, "I think we'll save inquiry into why that is for a later date. Can you tell us what led you to come into contact with myself and Detective Vakarian?"

"Well, when I first got to the Citadel, I tried to go to C-Sec headquarters, but the Turian at the desk told me to go away, rudely. And then, when I was walking out, some other Turians tried to shoot me! I got shot and I ran and nobody helped me!" Tali shouted that last part, rubbing the phantom pain in her left arm from where she'd been show, she shakes her head, "I got help from a clinic, and I was pointed at Chora's Den and Mr. Fist. I met with him and he promised he could get me into the Shadow Broker's protection, but then The detectives showed up and arrested Fist and his goons."

Now Murphy jumps in, "When interrogating Mr. Fist's bouncer, it was revealed that not only was Fist an Agent for the Shadow Broker, but he had also sold his services to Spectre Saren. The terms under which his services were sold included selling Miss Zorah to him, rather than the Broker. This led both Detective Vakarian, and myself to the conclusion that the information that Miss Zorah had acquired was, in fact, genuine. Tali, if you would please play the recording?"

Tali opened her omnitool and Saren's voice blasted out, "Eden Prime was a great victory now we are one step closer to finding the Conduit." And then a female voice responds, "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

All eyes in the hall turn to Saren, who looks terrified, and enraged, and flustered all at once. He snarls and the hologram vanishes. Murphy smirks, "Lady and Gentlemen of the Council, it seems that Spectre Arterius has just confirmed his own guilt."

"Indeed he has," Sparatus nods, with a sad sigh, "And now it must be determined how we are to pursue him."

"Send the fleets!" Udina demands

"Unfortunately we cannot," Tevos shakes her head, "Saren has no doubt fled into the Terminus Systems, and to send a fleet in would incite a war with the pirate kingdoms of Omega and beyond."

"Send me," Shepard offers

Sparatus, true to the role he has to play, grinds out, "No, it's too soon!"

"You don't want to send a fleet, I can move quickly and quietly, get Saren and get the hell out of the Terminus before things go sideways," Shepard explains

"Perhaps it is time," Tevos mutters, trying to make herself sound hesitant, "But which do we chose?"

"Why not both?" Demos asks, having been elected to be the eager party in the political mess

"Both!?" Sparatus growls, "If we are getting both, I demand one of ours as well!"

"Of course you would," Tevos rolls her eyes, but glad to hear that her friend had managed to weasel their next favorite candidate into the deal.

Everyone else in the room was confused by what the Council were talking to themselves about. It was clear that they were debating Shepard's entry into the Spectres, but now it seemed like there were actually three potential Spectres being wheedled out of this transition. Finally, Sparatus, Tevos, and Demos are in agreement.

"Commander Shepard, Detective Murphy, Detective Vakarian, step forward," Tevos commands.

"Oh, great," Garrus groans, realizing that the Council had finally managed to snag him as he and the other two step up.

The rest of the Galaxy, or at least that part of it that was interested in politics, watched in awe, confusion, and a little anger as Humanity gained two Spectres and the Turians yet another one of their own.


	5. History

**Robocops and Robbers 5**

"What I find myself curious about," Sparatus notes after he and his fellow councilors had adjourned to his office, "Is exactly what the Reapers are, and why both Saren and the Matriarch have turned their backs on everything they once stood for to bring them back."

"Name is troubling," Demos agrees, "Reapers, indicates death. Do not like the implication."

"Add to that, there are apparently multiple," Tevos rubs her tentacles, "A worrying predicament indeed."

"Should we bring the question up with our new Spectres?" Sparatus asks

"I say no," Demos shakes his head, "They will have their hands full with Saren and the Matriarch, let's not over-load them. I say we try and find a Prothean Expert."

"Why?" The Turian asks, sipping a drink he'd poured for himself. He didn't offer his companions anything for the simple fact that he always forgot to stock himself with non-Turian friendly drinks.

"Saren destroyed a Colony for the Beacon, clearly it had some sort of information on them, for him to risk exposure."

"So we find whoever knows the most about the Protheans, and ask them if they know anything?" Tevos guesses where her counterpart is going with this

"Exactly," Demos nods

"Then I think we're going to have to involve one of our new Spectres after all," Tevos tells him

"Why?" He asks

"Because the foremost Prothean Expert alive, is Liara T'Soni, who works for OCP's archaeological division."

"Ah, so we're going to need to involve Detective Murphy," Demos nods in understanding

"We could try and entice her without involving him," Sparatus suggests

"That would probably not be wise," Tevos shakes her head, "If anyone found out, it would certainly send the wrong message."

"True," The Turian nods, "Where is she at the moment, anyway?"

"OCP has control of the Mars Archives," Demos supplies, "Will most likely find her there."

"So we don't actually know where she is?" Sparatus asks

"No, suspicions only," Demos tells him

"Ah, then we will definitely have to involve the Detective," He finishes his glass, "I'll make the call."

He steps over to his desk and lights it up. After tapping a few buttons, there is a ringing, and then Murphy's voice declares, "Murphy speaking, how may I help you?"

"Detective, this is Councilor Sparatus," The Counselor tells him, "The Council has a second task for you."

"Yes, Sir, what do you need?"

"We are worried by the implications that Saren and Matriarch Benezia are trying to bring back 'Reapers,' whatever they are. As Saren chose to look for a Prothean Beacon to get the answers implies that we are in need of a Prothean Expert to find out what the 'Reapers' are. In that sense, we need you to collect Dr. Liara T'Soni and keep her on your crew, which should not be a problem, as she is currently under your employ."

"Understood, Sir, though I feel I should remind you that the Doctor is Matriarch Benezia's daughter."

Sparatus looks over to Tevos, who nods in confirmation, "We were aware of this when the decision was made, Detective. We feel the risk is worth the reward at this time. We will leave it to your discretion if this changes."

"Understood, Murphy out."

Murphy hangs up the call his eyebrow twitches in thought. His attention is turned to Garrus as his friend asks, "Something I should know about?"

Turning to his friend, he nods, "Just got word from the Council, our first course of action should be picking up Dr. T'Soni."

"Isn't she the Asari that keeps calling you sounding like the centennial has come early?" Garrus asks, amused

"Yes, she's been working out of a dig site on Therum for the last few months after she hit a particularly interesting data packet in the Archives," Murphy nods

"Good to hear," Garrus nods, "I'm glad she's having fun, she looked like she could use it the last time I saw her."

"She and her mother had just had a large fight," Murphy tells him.

"And her mother is Benezia, right?" Garrus clarifies

"Yes," Murphy nods

"Who are we talking about?" Tali asks, stepping up beside them

"Matriarch Benezia's daughter, Dr. Liara T'Soni," Murphy tells her, "She's going to be our Prothean consultant for the mission."

"Is that a good idea?" Tali asks

"She hasn't had contact with her mother in over three years," Murphy tells her

"Wait, that's how long since she called?" Garrus asks, surprised

"That's how long it's been since you saw a video call, yes," Murphy tells him, "She finally learnt tact, and embarrassment after you saw her out of her scrubs."

"Why not you?" Garrus asks, confused

"I am fairly certain she was attempting to be 'seductive,'" Murphy tells him, "But as she is a child by Asari standards, and did not go into the usual professions of stripping or murdering through their first century, she is rather inexperienced."

"How old is she?" Tali asks

"A hundred and three," Murphy tells her

"Huh, you're almost the same age as her," Garrus points out

"I think we should leave this topic alone," Murphy tells them, and the pair were sure that if he hadn't been half machine, he would have been blushing.

"What topic are we leaving alone?" Asks Kaidan Alenko as the human trio joins them, behind them, the bulking form of Urdnot Wrex follows along

Rather than answer the question, Murphy nods in respect to Wrex, "Warlord."

"Detective," Wrex nods, "Good show, by the way. Never thought I see the day three Spectres were named at once."

"It seems that we live in interesting times," Murphy notes

Wrex chuckles, "Yeah, best of times, they are."

"Didn't take you for a fan of Human literature," Garrus notes

"Please, you live as long as I do, you learnt to appreciate a good book, even if it isn't about your species," The Warlord huffs, "Don't go spreading that around though, I've got a reputation to keep."

"Fair enough," Garrus nods, and then he indicates Tali, "Wrex, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Tali, Urdnot Wrex."

"We're getting some tech backup on this op?" Wrex asks

"You're with us?" Murphy asks

"Yeah, Shepard invited me, sounds like fun."

"Good to have you," Garrus nods, having been around Murphy long enough that the Robocop's passive indifference to species or race was rubbing off on him

"Thanks," Wrex nods, who was old enough that the anger at the Genophage had moved past species bounds and into general all around anger, so he could actually talk with Salarians and Turians without thinking of interesting ways to kill them. Now he just thought of interesting ways to kill them for fun.

"Good, so we're all acquainted," Shepard nods, and waves for them all to enter the elevator, "Let's get up to the Normandy. The Captain and Udina have some news he wanted to share with me."

"If it's leads, we already have our first destination," Murphy tells him

"We do?" He asks

Murphy nods, "Dr. Liara T'Soni, an employee of mine, is the foremost expert on Prothean culture and history."

"How old is she?" Wrex asks, thinking that for her to be that good, she had to be ancient

"Hundred and Six," Garrus tells him

"What? Seriously? How could she possibly be the foremost expert?" Wrex asks

"She has an eidetic memory, and has been studying the Protheans for her entire life," Murphy tells him, "Plus she spent the last twenty years in the Mars Archives just… learning everything she could."

"Those are the ones that got the humans out of their solar system, right?" Tali asks

"They are, propelled our tech forward two hundred years," Ash tells her, "And I thought we were guarding them as closely as was possible?"

"We are," Murphy nods, "Which is why the Alliance runs security. But Omni Consumer Products has been at the spearhead of digging through the Archives in their entirety."

"Actually, can you settle a bet?" Kaidan asks

Murphy turns to him, and silently waits for the man to go on.

"My and my friend Jenkins were always wondering how you got control of OCP," Kaidan explains, "And we bet ten credits to either side. So I'd rather hear it from Robocop himself from an article in the Codex."

Garrus rolls his eyes. The amount of times he'd heard business tycoons wonder how a product owned a company, he couldn't even count, but he did appreciate the explanations that Murphy always gave.

"It's a rather complex story," Murphy tells Kaidan, "It starts, naturally, with my death. When I legally died, my then wife signed over my remains for scientific discovery. The me that was rebuilt, the original model Robocop, with the massive shoulders and permanent helmet, that was the property of OCP because it was no longer legally human. But, over time, I started to emerge from my traumatized brain. I started identifying myself by my name, not Robocop, and eventually the issue of my sentience came into question. The debate on whether or not I was a living thing or not started to rage and there were a lot of legal actions that I was not privy to at the time."

"But it all came to head after OCP was purchased by a Japanese conglomerate," He tells them, everyone in the elevator now fully engaged in the story, "They wanted to rebrand Detroit, and to do that they needed everyone to leave so they could rebuild. What happened, in the end, was OCP acting like a foreign military power within the city. There was a large battle, several explosions, more than a few dead friends… Including my first partner, Lewis."

Murphy closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to dispel old memories, but he was already telling some of his oldest, so it was only natural that others would rise with them, "She was a good cop, a good friend, and member of OCP's little hit squad shot her right in front of me."

After a minute, and still a few from the elevator finally reaching the Spaceport, he continues, "Anyway, OCP shit the bed, really bad. The conglomerate that purchased it wanted nothing to do with the company anymore, nobody wanted some greedy businessman to try again. In the end though, it all came down to two lawsuits; the first was State of Michigan vs Omni Consumer Products. The Company was destroyed, essentially, but its infrastructure had powered Detroit for decades, so we couldn't let it slip into nothingness any more than we wanted it in the city to begin with. So the second lawsuit helped us get it on the right track."

"Alex Murphy vs Omni Consumer Products," Garrus chuckles

"The very same," Murphy agrees, "It was a suit that was filed for me to determine my state as either a machine or a human being. They found in my favor, and I was awarded a substantial sum from the conglomerate. I then used that to purchase OCP from them."

"How much did they grant you?" Wrex asks, aware of how much money companies were worth, he had been paid to steal from them from time to time, so the information was absorbed by osmosis.

"Enough to cover two decades of back pay, more than a dozen willful endangerments, a few attempted murders, and the damage done to my person for the sake of making me an unfeeling machine," Murphy tells him

"So… somewhere in the Billions?" Wrex raises a brow

"Enough so that when I made the offer that I'd take OCP rather than their money they jumped at the chance."

"And it probably helped that the OCP name was absolute poison at the time," Kaidan guesses

Murphy nods, "So, who won your bet?"

Kaidan smirks, "Jenkins, I'll tell him the next time I see him."

"Which hopefully won't be for a very long time," Shepard grunts from the back of the Elevator

"I take it that Mr. Jenkins is dead?" Murphy asks gently

Shepard nods sadly, "Yeah, Geth got him first two minutes we were on Eden Prime. Fuckin robot assholes are going to pay."

Murphy nods while Garrus and Tali exchange nervous looks at the sudden tension in the air. To dispel it, Garrus clears his throat and wonders aloud, "So where do you think Saren's popped off to?"

Looks were exchanged, and eventually they all settled on Murphy. The Robocop shrugs, not sure what to tell them. He hadn't ever thought to track the movements of a Spectre, after all, they were within the purview of the law and so he had no reason to suspect them of wrongdoings until today.

Thankfully, the tension was broken when the elevator doors opened and they stepped out onto the landing platform. Murphy, Garrus, Tali, and Wrex all stop at the sight of the Normandy SR1. The Marines all smile at their slight awe and Shepard is the first to ask, "What's the matter? Never seen a ship before?"

"It's got windows," Wrex mutters, wondering who was the genius that came up with that tactical decision

"Can you hear the hum?" Tali asks, excited to get a chance to see the insides of the vessel

"I didn't think they'd actually make it look this nice," Garrus admits, giving Shepard an appreciative nod

"It is quite beautiful," Robocop tells him, "The lines are aesthetically pleasing, the color palette looks deliberate, and th-"

"Alright, enough of that!" Garrus nudges his friend, "Go stow our stuff, everyone, and leave the Spectres to talk to the Captain and the Ambassador."

The aliens moved into the ship after Alenko and Williams while the three Spectres moved to speak with Anderson and Udina.

By the end of the conversation they had two extra destinations: Noveria and Feros.


	6. Breeding Grounds

**Robocops and Robbers 6**

The Normandy SR1 hadn't been in the black for five minutes before the crew was clamoring about the fact that Commander Shepard had been given command, Anderson was benched, and that another two Spectres besides Shepard were going to be joining the crew along with a few aliens. That those two groups slightly overlapped didn't matter much, as it just added to the intrigue that circled the second take off of the new stealth frigate.

"Attention Crew, this is Commander Shepard," The intercom buzzes with the sounds of his voice, "I know a lot of you don't appreciate the sudden change in command. Hell, I'm right there with you. But we've got our orders: Find Saren, figure out what the hell he's up to, and kill him. We're up against an army of Geth, a Spectre that hates humans, and an ancient Asari Matriarch; theses are not good odds, but we've all overcome worse. I trust you all to do your best, just like I will. Everyone take ten to get situated, then there will be a briefing for the ground team in the situation room. Shepard out."

"Good speach, Commander," Flight Luetenant Jeff Moreau nods to him, there is a slight whir as the man's mechanical bones shift with the motion, "Shit deal for Anderson, but we know it was politics that got him, not you."

Shepard pats the FL on the shoulder, "I appreciate the sentiment, Joker. Robocop give you our destination yet?"

"Yeah, co-ordinates are in, and the course is plotted," Joker nods.

Shepard nods and turns to head down to the cafeteria. He had time to grab a protein bar to munch on durring the meeting. As he left, Joker sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting the electronics that were grafted into his bones connect him to the ship so he could get to doing what he loved.

Ten minutes later, the ground crew was assembled in the meeting room. Shepard, Murphy, Garrus, Ash, Kaidan, Tali, and Wrex were sitting in a circle in very small chairs. Once everyone was seated, Garrus broke the silence, "First order of business, I elect we get bigger chairs."

"Hear, hear!" Wrex agrees, already having to fight to keep from slipping off of his chair, which for the massive Krogan was more like an overgrown footstool.

"We'll deal with the chairs once we meet up with the OCP destroyer orbiting Therum," Murphy tells him, "There should be a omniprinter on board, so you'll only have to deal with the problem the once."

"Good, I can already feel my ass starting to chafe," Wrex grunts

"Anyway," Ash coughs, and turns to the Spectres, "First target?"

Muprhy nods and stands. He steps up to the wall screen and with a mental command it lights up with the image of a young looking Asari, "This is Doctor Liara T'Soni, daughter of Matriarch Benezia. The Council is of the opinion that we need a Prothean Expert on the team, and she's the best there is that's still thinking outside the box."

"Yeah, we went over that on the long ass elevator ride," Wrex grumbles, "Anything new we need to learn?"

"There is," Murphy nods, and the image changes to show a planet rife with Techtonic activity, "This is Therum, the planet that Dr. T'Soni is currently working on. She is ripping everything even remotely Prothean off of the Planet's surface for later study."

"Isn't she an archiologist?" Garrus asks

"She is," Murphy nods

"Doesn't what you just said she's doing kind of go against the code of archiologists or something?" He asks

"It does, but Therum is just one massive volcanic rock at the moment, and the only way I was going to approve any form of excavation was if it was done in a safe environment."

"So the reason you have a destroyer orbiting the planet is so that it can cart the ruins off to a safer location?" Kaidan asks, having wondered why there would be a ship so large orbiting an archiological site.

"Correct," Murphy nods.

"Does the Doctor know that we're coming?" Shepard asks

"She does," Murphy nods, "and she was not pleased about being torn from her work until I made mention of a possible new source of information on the Protheans."

"New source?" Shepard asks, narrowing his eyes. He had not mentioned his vision durring the trial, and could not think of what else there was.

"Saren mentioned something called the Conduit in Tali's recording," Murphy reminds him.

"Oh!" Tali perks up, getting it, "So you told her that you were searching for the 'Conduit?'"

"I did, and I also told her that nobody knows what it is," Murphy nods, "She could not refrain from joining up with us after I mentioned it."

"Alright, so we're getting the Asari so she can geek out over the Prothean stuff we find on the hunt for Saren. After we pick her up, what's our next step?" Ash asks

"We have two options," Shepard tells her, "We can either go to Noveria, or Feros. Noveria acts as a neutral corporate hub, and Saren is the primary share holder of the company Binary Helix. We can investigates the goings on of the company from there, and hopefully it will give us a hint as to his location. As for Feros, the colony was built on some of the most expansive Prohean Ruins in recorded history. It went dark yesterday, so we are running on the assumption that it was the Geth."

"So after we pick up the archiologist, we could either wade through corporate finance, or kick some Geth ass?" Wrex asks

"Yes," Shepard nods

"I vote Feros," Wrex tells everyone

"So do I," Tali agrees

Soon enough, and after a series of votes, it was decided that Feros would indeed be the second stop for the team. Once that was decided, the meeting was broken up and everyone split to go and get some sleep or prep their equipment.

Finally, the last three in the meeting room are the three Spectres, and Shepard brings up a new point, "Any chance that we could get some help from OCP?"

"Way ahead of you," Murphy assures him, "I already sent everyone's measurements and prefered loadout to the Destroyer, bu the time we get there, everyone will be able to outfit with A-grade OCP issued armor and weapons."

Shepard nods, "Thank you. On a different subject, can the Doctor be trusted?"

"She can," Murphy nods, "To put it into perspective, she knows what lying is, and she has never mastered the skill."

Garrus snorts.

Shepard turns to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

The Turian raises a finger, and then opens his omnitool. He clicks a few buttons, ignoring the fact that Murphy has started rubbing his eyes, and then brings up a video.

"Hello, Sir," says a near naked Asari, probably Liara T'Soni, "I hope this message finds you well, I was hoping to let you know-"

"Liara, you called the wrong number," Garrus's tired voice issues from the video

The Asari gives an alarmed squeek, and the video shuts off.

Shepard chuckles when it is finished, and then turns to look at the Robocop, "you didn't mention that she was sweet on you?"

"I did not think it was worth mentioning," Murphy tells him, and Shepard is sure that if he actually possessed blood cells in his face, they would be glowing red.

"I feel like there's a story there, somewhere," Shepard notes, smirking.

Garrus is right there with him and nods, "Oh, there's a lot of history between them, and whatever it is that they've got has been building for years!"

"How long have they known each other?" Shepard asks, ignoring the fact that Murphy is slowly backing out of the room, smiling the whole time.

"Somewhere around twenty years," Garrus tells the Commander as the doors slide open and then closed.

After Murphy is gone, the two of them break down laughing, holding each other to stay up. It takes them a minute to regain control, but once they do, they move off to go grab some grub, chatting amicably as they do.

Down in the Cargo Hold, Wrex and Ash eye each other from a few meters away. The Krogan is the first to speak, "You got a problem, girl?"

"No, do you?" Ash dares him to deny it

"Yeah, I've got a problem."

"And what problem is that?"

"You've got the look most Salarians have when they look at me," Wrex tells her.

"And what does that mean?" She asks, now more curious than suspicious

"Means you're looking at me like you're waiting for an excuse to put a bullet in my head," Wrex grunts. His voice lacks the judgement that Ash would have thought walked hand in hand with a statement like that.

The Gunny blinks and furrows her brow, "Oh, sorry."

"Nah," Wrex shrugs it off, "Not offended or anything, just curious."

"About what?" She asks, leaning against the workbench she had been tweaking her Avenger at.

"About why you're giving me the look," He tells her

Her furrowed brows are joined by a frown, and after a while she tells him, "My grandfather was "Surrender General" Williams."

Wrex waits for more. After a minute, it is clear that Ashley thinks that what she said explains it all, and the Krogan prompts, "Yeah?"

"Only commander in human history to surrender to an Alien force," She sighs, "And that's plagued my family for three fucking generations."

"So, what? You hate Aliens because your Grandpa was smart enough to surrender?" Wrex asks, "I wish my Gramps was that smart, maybe then I wouldn't have a pile of dead kids back home."

"What?" Ashley asks, horrified

"Yep, Genophage is a dirty piece of work," the Warlord grunts, long having gotten used to the terrible nature of the Krogan situation, "Kills our babies before they come out. The way you look at me is the way I look at Turians and Salarians, and the way Salarians that know my reputation look at me."

"Your reputation?" Ash asks, almost hoping he won't go into detail.

"I take my time when I'm hired to kill a Salarian," Wrex tells her with a savage grin. The amount of scars that criss-cross the Krogan's face helps add a great deal of possibility to what he means by 'take his time'

"Don't scare the Gunnery Sergeant, Warlord," The voice of Robocop admonishes as he joins them, "We're all on the same side here."

"Hm, right," Wrex grunts, and then turns to head back to the corner of the Cargo Hold that he named his.

"Don't mind him," Murphy tells Ashley, "He's a good man when you get to know him."

"How do you know him?" She asks

"I arrested him," Murphy tells her

"If you arrested him, doesn't that mean that he isn't a good man?"

"He came quietly," Murphy tells her, "Admittedly that was after a brief exchange of blows, but not many Krogan are willing to admit that they are outmatched. That he did so tells me that he is a smart man. Add to that he may be the most peaceful leader of a Krogan Clan I've ever heard of, and it paints a fairly impressive portrait of who we have on our team."

"He's the leader of a Krogan Clan?" The Gunny asks, and then tilts her head, "Wait, Krogan have clans?"

"They do, and our friend Urdnot Wrex is the leader of Clan Urdnot. Or at least he was three hundred or so years ago," Murphy tells her, "And interestingly enough, even though he left Tuchanka centuries ago, the clan is still living by his code."

"And what's his code?" Ashley asks

"Funnily enough, humans have known it for centuries," Murphy smiles, "Make love, not war."

"Seriously?" Ash blinks and raises an eyebrow

"He's been concerned with keeping up the Krogan population, rather than dropping it," Murphy tells her, "One of the most forward thinking Krogan out there."

"Awe, shucks tin man, you're making my crest itch," Wrex laughs from the other side of the room, apparently having heard what he said

"Well, hopefully it isn't contagious," Murphy comments

"HA!" Wrex barks out a laugh

As the two start to bicker, Ashley goes back to tweaking her rifle. While she works, she tries to think about what both Wrex and the Robocop have told her, and how those things have made her contemplate her own insecurity and anger with her Grandfather's legacy.

All the while, the Normandy sails through the black towards Therum


	7. New Toys

**Robocops and Robbers 7**

Therum hung in space, glowing red and black from the fire and smoke that covered the planet. Above it was one of the largest ships known to Council space, the _OCP Order_ , it along with its twin the _OCP Law_ were two massive dreadnaughts that had been built a few years before humanity and Council encountered each other. The _Law_ and _Order_ were larger than the _Destiny Ascension_ by an order of two, which was a sore point for the Asari.

Murphy was particularly proud of the ships, as they represented exactly how far ahead of the other races (and more importantly, other companies) OCP was. The Ships had been built before Mass Effect technology had been discovered, and were actually part of the research fleet that had orbited Mars after the archives were found. Over the years, both had been upgraded, retrofitted, altered, and all around improved at least six times to make them more impressive.

The main battery of the _Order_ could disable any ship, and knock out the electrical power of half a colony if the shot hit a planet. That was where most of the fear lay when contemplating the terrible might of the _Law_ and _Order_ , not the chance of death, but the inevitability of capture. Long ago, when the first hints of space pirates became known, Murphy had decided that OCP should reflect the image he had been projecting, that of the strong arm of the law.

Thousands of Pirates had been taken captive in the brigs of the _Law_ and _Order_ , and both ships were regarded as better versions of the prison ship _Purgatory_ , that the Blue Sons ran.

All of this was told to the away team that accompanied Murphy, Shepard, and Garrus as they docked and boarded the massive ship. Everyone, even Wrex, was suitably impressed with the massive ship.

"So why is the whole team coming on this little tour?" The Krogan asks, having quickly gotten over the speechlessness that had infected everyone.

"Good question," Murphy waves them all into a tram, which an operator quickly gets moving, "And the answer is that I don't want to carry your stuff as well as mine."

"Our stuff?" Wrex's mouth spreads into a grin as he realizes what that means, revealing all of his teeth.

"I thought you'd appreciate that," Murphy nods

Garrus, seeing that not everyone has gotten what his partner was insinuating, explains, "We're getting outfitted with OCP made gear."

"The heavy duty stuff, too," Murphy tells them as they start to get excited. It was a well known fact that OCP made some of the best equipment available, and their armor had been in feild testing since Robocop first rolled off the production line. After nearly two centuries, the armor could take a blast from a Mako and keep going! The same couldn't be said for the squeeshy people actually wearing the armor, but the armor would act like a very good piece of tuperwear for their liquified remains.

Regardless of Mako blasts, the armor was very good, and the weapons were equally as well made. There were of course the standard issue metal block guns, but then there were the ones that used exotic amunition, like electricity. Those would be fun to play with, and especially effective against Geth.

"Ah, Detective!" Somebody exclaims as the Tram comes to a stop, and there are a collection of turned heads, revealing an Asari Maiden rushing excitedly towards them.

"Doctor!" Murphy exclaims happily, stepping up, "Glad you could join us so quickly, are you ready to go?"

"Oh yes! I've catologued all of my notes for whoever takes charge of the dig after we depart, I've highlighted the more interesting pieces and I've even told the researchers on Mars to start looking for the schematics to something broadly called 'The Device.'"

"Fun, we've got a new ambiguous title," Ash groans, which attracts the attention of the Doctor and drags her away from Robocop.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! My name is Doctor Liara T'Soni," She nearly leaps forward with her hand extended, "A Pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasures all mine Doc," Ash takes her hand, sure that if Asari had not been gifted with perpetually perfect vision, Liara would be sporting very large glasses, "I'm Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams, you can call me Ash."

"Then you can call me Liara," The Doctor tells her, "Or 'Doc,' as you called me. I don't mind, I find the human custom of nicknaming fascinating."

"Glad to hear it Liara," Garrus chuckles as he turns her arround to give her a hug, "Good to see you."

"You as well, Garrus," She tells him as she returns the hug.

After they separate, she goes through everyone and gets names and they get her strange brand of enthusiasm. Eventually, he comes to Shepard, and they shake hands. The Commander looks down at her, and forces a smile onto his permanent frown and tells her, "Nice to meet you, Doctor T'Soni, I hope your knowledge can prove invaluable."

"Oh, so do I!" She exclaims, nodding excitedly

"Now, before we go and collect the equipment Murphy arranged for us, I need to make sure," He takes a breath, and then asks, "You are aware that one of the people of interest that we will be hunting down is your mother, correct?"

The enthusiasm seems to bleed out of Liara, and the maiden nods, "I know. I don't know why she joined Saren, or what she hopes to achieve, but we have not spoken in years, so whatever else there to know, I will learn it as you and the rest of the team do."

"Thank you," He tells her, "I'm sorry that I had to ask."

"No, no, it's understandable," Liara tells him, swallowing a lump in her throat, before pulling herself back into her usual mood, "Anyway, I believe we have equipment to collect?"

"Right," Murphy nods, and then waves for the team to follow as he leads them further through the massive ship.

It takes five minutes for the team to reach the _Order_ 's armory, and what they find is a new suit of armor in OCP standard black and blues, as well as entire walls of the high end weaponry that was denied to the public and not actually sold to the Alliance for fear that if a bulk sale was made the weapons would fall into the hands of Pirates or Cerberus.

In other words, the team was getting access to the prototype equipment too dangerous for general distribution, and they were loving it. Wrex giddily picked up a shotgun variation, a three pronged affair that even while inactive had small pulses of lightning coursing between them. He collapsed the weapon, and set it down in favor of picking up a different beast entirely.

The massive Krogan hefted an assault rifle that looked like it could have been torn from a tank. A trio of massive spinning barrels, an oversized shield, and a downwards facing handle. With same experimenting, he found that he was meant to attach a prong to the back of his new armor, so that he could carry the weapon underhanded. A few dials told him that he could change ammo types from electric, to inferno, to regular old solid metal. He was sure that if he fired at a wall, the wall would just become a piece of riddled art by the time a minute had gone by.

Everyone else was experiencing much the same joy as the Warlord, though as each hadn't lived as long, they had not gained his immense appreciation for a finely crafted killing machine. Instead, they appreciated the curves, the weight, and the ease with which they could wield their new weapons.

It was while they were donning their new armor that the trouble started, though. There was a feignt rumbling, and Robocop opened a channel to the bridge, "Report."

Having set the audio to speaker mode, the captain's answer was heard by all, "Geth cruiser, sir. It popped out of Light-speed and opened fire. No serious damage, but it looks like they intend to ram us.

"Are the cyber-warfare suites in place?" Murphy asks

"Yes, Sir, we're locked up tighter than a nun's unmentionables."

"Good to hear," Murphy chuckles, "Is the cruiser small enough to fit in one of the detention facilities?"

"If we jettison Grid D, we could fit them into the space?" The Captain half asks, clearly talking partially to his deck crew. After a second, he tells Murphy, "We'll definitely have space, sir."

"Good, disable the cruiser and let it coast in," the cyborg tells the captain, "My Team and I will handle it from there."

Everyone puts on their armor a little bit quicker after that, and soon everyone is adorned in the Black and Blue of the OCP enforcers. Looking at each other, Ashley is the first to speak, "Any way we can get a change in the paint job?"

"What's wrong with these colors?" Murphy asks, looking down at his usual body, "I've been wearing them for two hundred years, and nobody's complained."

"Well not everyone is you," Ash points out, "We don't all rock the Black and Blue with your style."

"Yeah, some of us rock pink," Kaidan notes with a chuckle

"Hey, don't knock the pink," Ashley tells him, "Vikings thought that Pink was a very powerful color, don't you know?"

"I think you mean manly, don't you?"

As the two humans bickered, Tali leaned towards Garrus and asks, "What's wrong with pink?"

The Turian shrugs, never having understood the human obsession with colors. Wrex, too, shrugs after hearing the question. They do their best to ignore the bickering, and they succeed quite magnificently when they figure out how to mute the connection between themselves and the bickering pair.

"If everyone could calm down and open up your mics?" Shepard calls when they reach a particularly large set of doors, "We are about to enter vacuum, buckets on."

There is a collective assemblage of helmets as they fold over everyone's faces, a replication of Murphy's own protective gear, which merely slides into place to cover his entire head rather than just his eyes. All Tali has to do is solidify her visor to a hard purple sheet, rather than a thin clear one.

"Seal check," Shepard calls, and as soon as he gets green lights from everyone, he hits the door release, "Breach!"

They enter the open space when the Geth Cruiser coasted in with guns raised and ready to fire, which they needed to do almost immediately. Two Geth Rocketeers drop from a pair of sniper rounds courtesy of Garrus and Ashley, while a Geth Prime is lifted into from the ground by a double application of biotic forces from Wrex and Liara. It is perforated by Tali and Kaidan while Shepard and Murphy take point.

The Cruiser hung in Grid D, suspended in the empty cube of space by eight clamps, each of the camps being worked on by a team of Geth as they tried to unshackle their ship and escape. A hundred yards down, the solid surface of Grid E lay bare of activity, though if the continued activity of the synthetics was any indication, this would not remain the story for long.

They move in swift procession along the closest clamp, each a deadly mix of skill and awareness, maximized in a team that could not be any more overpowered if it tried. Geth fel by droves as they tried to stop the advancing Spectres, but it took only a single shot from the lightning weapons to render them inoperable.

Two minutes after entering Grid D, the team is standing at an external door to the Geth ship. Murphy, Shepard, and Wrex stand aiming their rifles at the door while Tali hacks through the door and the rest of the team provides cover. Breath is held collectively as the holographic door display starts to blink, and then it opens and a massive Krogan leaps out the door and tackles Wrex.

The two Krogan go tumbling as the doorway clears and dozens of Geth start trying to push out against the humans. The mechanical soldiers are swiftly cut down, but the weapons the team had so eagerly collected proved to be ineffective against the Krogan . Their shots clearly took out the Battlemaster's shields, but either Krogan hardiness or something else was making it impossible to bring him down with their arc guns.

Wrex didn't mind, as the chance to beat down an enemy was always fun to the centuries old warlord. They traded headbuts, kicks, punches, and roars as they fall through the vacuum towards the lower level of Grid E.

"Wrex!" Shepard rushes to the edge of the ship and sees the pair slowly falling towards a distant ground. Seeing that the fall wouldn't kill anyone, and that the lower area was starting to swarm with Geth, he turns back to the team, "Kaidan, Liara, the three of us are going to assist Wrex. Murphy, Garrus, I leave taking the ship to you."

The other two members of his chosen squad nod and as one, they leap from the Geth Ship. The fall gives them time to line up a dozen shots, and they swiftly clear twenty yards around Wrex's soon to be landing site. They watch as the dueling Krogan punch, butt, and swipe at each other to see who will slam into the ground first.

Wrex, in the end, is the victor of that contest, slamming down on the other Krogan with both feet as they connect with the ground. He then launches himself up into the vacuum, the lessened gravity giving him twenty feet of extra height before he starts to fall. In that time he has pulled his massive turret from his back and flicked the dial to equip standard rounds. After only ten seconds of continuous fire, the Krogan on the ground is reduced to a bloody paste, with barely enough left to fill a doggy bag.

Shepard, Kaidan, and Liara land around the Krogan as he laughs in triumph. The jubilation continues as he turns his gun on the advancing Geth, and reduces them to scrap as well. The team hunkers down behind his massive bulk and starts to spread their fire, slowly tearing apart the Geth that surround them. Phasic rounds ding of shields and armor as the Geth press in, but the slaughter is very much one sided.

Shepard picks off flashlight heads left and right, Kaidan launches massive numbers of Geth into the air, and Liara compresses even more into spaces not meant to fit even a single of their number. All the while, Wrex laughs and mulches the synthetics stupid enough to get in front of his cannons.

Far above, Garrus and Murphy look down at Grid E, and the Turian Spectre asks, "Think they're having fun?"


	8. Killzones

**Robocops and Robbers 8**

The interior of the Geth ship was dark, and filled with a fog that clung to everyone's armor. Ashley and Murphy enter first, sweeping their weapons in opposite directions and with a series of precise shots disable the five Geth that had been waiting within the hallway outside the door.

"Somebody left the AC on," Garrus notes as he and Tali enter as well, swapping from his sniper to his assault rifle.

"Geth are programs inside hardware, they need the cold so their servers don't overheat," Tali explains as she swaps her own weapons and pulls out her shotgun.

Garrus nods as they take a left turn from their entrance, heading towards the head like protrusion at the point of the ship. Their travels are not overly complicated, as the Geth that tried to get in their way were more of an annoyance than anything else. Murphy and Ashley easily dismantled the synthetics, the OCP issue weapons tearing the hardware apart and by the scream of electronics, possibly killing the programs before they could escape the bodies.

This development proved interesting, as it meant that the team found more than a few hardwares just standing in the hallway, the programs having fled. It was a harsh lesson to learn, but the Geth did not want to die. They had learnt this three centuries before, and were learning it all over again as their ship was slowly commandeered by a cyborg and three organics.

Ashley poked one of the Geth bodies that just stood in the hall before them. The metal shell collapses with the touch and she looks to Tali, "The hell's going on?"

"I think they're running," Tali tells her, surprised

"And they just left their bodies?" The Sergeant asks

"They don't need them," Tali tells her, "The Geth are digital, a body to them is like a ship."

"Huh, so that means we're scaring them away?" Ash asks

"It looks like it," Tali smiles under her faceplate, "Oh, if Father could see me now."

"Your Father?" Murphy asks

"He is an Admiral with the Migrant Fleet," Tali tells them, "And he does not have much time for anything but Geth and his ships."

"Ah, I can sympathize," Garrus tells her, "My dad was an old time C-Sec officer. If it didn't involve the job, he didn't care."

"What does he think of you becoming a Spectre?" Ashley asks

"Probably not the most thrilled guy in the world," Garrus tells her

"Really?" Tali is the one who is the more surprised

"Garrus's dad doesn't like the Spectres," Murphy notes as he tilts around a corner and sees nothing but inactive Geth, "Thinks that nobody should be above the law."

"Yeah, and how many times have the two of you had that talk?" Garrus sighs

"Ten, by my last count," Murphy smirks

"Yeah, right," Garus snorts, "How do you think he feels about either of us in the Spectres?"

"Finally we've got some decent boys in blue in the service?" Murphy asks

Garrus tilts his head, "Actually, yeah, probably."

That was when the Geth around them reactivated and attacked. The first one catches Tali in the stomach, knocking her off her feet and onto her ass. The Quarian rolls to the side, tripping the Geth as it tries to stomp her. The Geth crashes down and she brings her shotgun up and while still laying on the floor takes its head off.

Murphy's face mask is grabbed and torn upwards, the visor shooting back into the top of his head as his head is jerked up. Seeing a more animalisticaly formed geth with frog like limbs ready to pounce on him. Robocop's fingers fold back and his connection spike pops out of his knuckles, which he thrusts up into the glowing eye of the frog Geth.

Garrus, as soon as he sees Tali go down, feels his shields flare as he is peppered with Geth fire. His HUD tells him that he'd last only a few more seconds before they dropped completely. He jumps forward, assault rifle barking as he takes the head off a Geth directly in front of him. He grabs the hollow shell before it can drop and uses it as a solid wall of metal between himself and another Geth.

The Geth firing at Garrus has its gun torn from its grasp by Ashley, who had been largely ignored in favor of the Quarian and two Spectres. She then slams the Geth's head to the side with her own rifle, drops its weapon, and on her backswing with her still armed hand, slices the Geth in half with a stream of assault rifle fire at point blank range.

Tali climbs to her feet as a rhythmic thumping starts to echo from either side of the corridor that they find themselves in. The Quarian looks over to the Spectres, "What do we do?"

Murphy looks between either end of the hallway, quickly picking off the first of the Geth to turn the corner into their corridor, "We need to move."

"Which way?" Garrus asks, "Just saying, we're probably gonna run into more Geth if we keep moving towards the Bridge."

"We shouldn't turn back," Ashley adds her two cents, "We take the Bridge, we'll get a defensible position."

Murphy nods, "Agreed, we take the Bridge."

Their course decided, the four continued on their way. Now wary of deactivated bodies, they took the time to destroy any Geth platform they came across. This process slowed them by a few seconds each time, and by the end of their tenth corridor, the Geth that were behind them had caught up and were advancing along an organized line.

There were two rows, one crouched and one standing, and they were far back enough that any attempt to take them in a charge would get all four members of the party torn apart as easily as they had been doing to the Geth themselves. The team's only choice is to fall back, turning as many corners as they can so that they don't find themselves caught in the killbox.

Only Murphy's computer guided sense of direction kept them from becoming utterly lost in the maze of identical corridors, hallways, and chambers. Their trek in search of the bridge of the ship takes them through a weapon's battery, an engine room, and some form of server room. In each they take the time to set a few detonable omni-grenades.

"Hey Tali, why aren't you on point in here?" Ashley asks after a while

"My people built the Geth centuries ago," Tali reminds her, "And it's been centuries since they rebelled. Whatever designs the Quarians had for ships has long been phased out by my people in favor of newer ships. While schematics still exist, not all of us carry around reminders of ships we'll never fly."

"So you just don't have the map?" Ash asks

"Bingo, As you humans like to say" Tali confirms

"We should contact Shepard," Garrus tells Murphy, "Check in with them and see if they can come in as backup."

Murphy nods, "Make the call."

Garrus steps against a wall as the team turns down a corner, pulling out his sidearm as he places his free hand against his ear hole, "Shepard, you copy?"

" _Garrus? That you?_ " There is a crack of static as Shepard's voice comes through

"Yeah, what's your status?" The Turian asks

" _Well, Wrex is having fun,_ " Shepard snarks, and then tells his fellow Spectre, " _We're setting charges on the bottom of the ship, gonna blow our way in. How bout you guys?_ "

"We're moving to the Bridge," Garrus tells him as a distant thump signals the detonation of explosives at the base of the Geth Ship, "It may take a while."

" _Well, hopefully the hole we just blew in the ship should attract their attention and free you guys up,_ " Shepard notes, the sound of gunfire starting up in the background, " _Get it done._ "

Garrus disconnects and stows his pistol, pulling his rifle again as he retakes his place with the team, "Shepard's team is entering the ship from the bottom, he told us to hurry the hell up."

"How did they get onto the bottom of the ship?" Tali asks, wondering how they had gotten up the hundred feet or so.

"Biotics and mag-boots, probably," Ashley tells her as they move out.

With attention diverted between the two teams, the threat of overwhelming ambush lessened, and the only thing the team had to worry about was the Geth killbox that was still slowly pushing them down a curving path.

"Why don't they just open fire?" Tali asks eventually, when they turn another corner, "They've had more than enough opportunity."

"Anything more than twenty feet, we've got time to buff our shields," Garrus offers, "OCP armor has overshield. Only lasts about five seconds, but that would be all we needed to get around a corner, unless we were close enough where those seconds didn't matter."

"How do you know that?" Ash asks

"I've been titillating him with OCP monthly for years," Murphy tells her, "He's my target audience."

"Your company's monthly magazine is targeted at Garrus?" Ash look at him like he's crazy

"Yeah, next to humanity, the Turians are the next largest buyer of OCP products," Murphy tells her, "And if it can interest Garrus who's about as big a Turian as a man can be, then it can interest anyone."

"Garrus?" Tali asks, who wonders what Murphy is thinking; as far as she could tell, Garrus was so far out of common Turian conduct that if it was a club he'd have been asked to return his card.

Garrus twitches his mandibles, "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But he's actually right, I'm just the right amount of cynical that I represent most of his Turian buyers. They're mostly Generals."

Conversation drifts to an end as the temperature drops a few degrees more and they reach an intersection. Murphy takes the lead, and the team moves to the left and down another series of corridors before coming across a large door, sealed tightly against entry.

"I think we've found our entrance," Garrus notes

"That we have," Murphy nods, then turns to his friend and tells him, "You and Ashley grab set up at the door, take anything that comes down the hallway down. Me and Tali will work to get the door open."

Garrus nods, and with a jerk of his head to the listening Ashley, moves off to the door to the rest of the ship with the Gunnery Sergeant. They set up against either side of the doorway, using the advantage of sharp corners into the room that led to the sealed door to their advantage. Backs pressed against their respective walls, they turned their heads to gaze down the corridor in unison, and as one they raise their rifles at the sight of the eight Geth mobile killzone that had been chasing them for half the ship.

Murphy and Tali did their best to ignore the gunfire as they set to work. Tali brought out her omnitool and quickly set her most advanced autohack program working on the door while she manually started trying to spam the firewall that controlled the door release. Murphy on the other hand had torn a panel from the wall next to the door, and then spiked directly into the circuitry there.

Spiking was an old trick for the Robocop, all the way back in his first weeks awake after he died, Murphy had managed to use it three times. Twice had resulted in the deaths of criminals, one by direct application, and another by practical, but after that he had always been fond of the practice. The Spike had evolved with the centuries, and by the point where Murphy was stabbing it into the exposed electronics, it acted as direct access into the program.

"Murphy, how we doin?" Garrus asks after he and Ashley take down the last of the Geth Killteam

"We're through," Murphy tells him, retracting his spike

"We are?" Tali asks

"Yeah, I helped your program gain access to the door," Murphy tells her as her omnitool chimes to let her know that the job was done.

In the center of the door, a green hologram activates, and as soon as everyone is ready, Murphy waves his hand through it. The doors spin and slide open, revealing a team of Geth that open fire on Murphy.

Bullets ping and ting off of his armor as he raises his own pistol. He takes the flashlight off of the Geth directly in front of him while the other members of the team take care of the rest. Once the air is clear of gunfire, he looks down to check himself. All that seems to be present in way of damage is a slight decrease in the functionality of his left arm. While troublesome, it could be dealt with later, and he could still shoot with that hand so long as it was from the hip.

It was time to take the bridge.


	9. The Trap

**Robocops and Robbers 9**

Shepard calmly surveyed the destruction caused by his team as behind him they set charges at the base of the ship. Above him, which was really below him if one were to go by orientation of the ships, hundreds of Geth lay shattered on the ground due mostly to Wrex's massive rifle. Shepard was privately contemplating dubbing it the Mulcher.

It seemed that no matter how advanced the target, a ton of Krogan and bullets would reduce it to lumpy paste in no time at all. Wrex had been very happy with his new toy, and had taken to cackling like a maniac every time he squeezed the trigger.

Shepard would also admit to wanting to join in on the fun.

There is a blast from behind him, and he turns to see that a ten foot hole in the bottom of the ship had been shattered open. There wasn't even a hint of hull plating remaining and he has to ask, "Just how much omnigel did you use?"

Wrex looks sheepish as the other two turn their eyes to him and glare, "All of it."

"All of it? Even the medigel?"

"Yeah."

"Well congratulations Wrex, you just volunteered to be our meat shield."

"I thought I already was?"

"No, before you just liked being in front," Shepard tells him, "Now, we want to be in the back."

"What's the difference?" Wrex snorts

"Nothing much, just perspective," Shepard admits, "Plus it'll make me feel better."

Wrex laughs and jumps into the hole. The sound of gunfire echoes out of the hole, and then the returning sound of Wrex's mulcher. When that dies down, he calls to the other three, "Alright, they're dead. Let's go."

Shepard, followed by Liara and Kaidan, enters the ship with rifle raised. There is a brief second of disorientation at the gravitational focus being flipped completely on it's axis, but training and focus keep them from getting distracted as their guns point at the dead Geth plastered over the wall.

"Huh, painted Geth," Kaidan notes as he blinks at the walls, "kinda reminds me of a Van Gogh painting."

"Who?" Wrex and Liara ask at the same time

"History later, killing Geth now," Shepard demands and points Wrex down their first corridor.

The Krogan hefts his mulcher and starts to stride through the hallway, his massive bulk making it necessary for Kaidan and Liara to peek around his waist while crouching so that they could actually see ahead. Shepard, in his heavier armor, didn't bother and instead guarded their rear.

This turned out to be the best spot next to Wrex's, as the number of Geth trying to sneak up on the four of them was nearly a third of what was trying to take them from the front. As a result, he was gladly putting his marksman mastery to use as he turned flashlight after flashlight off in the permanent sense. He would have been having fun if it weren't for the perpetual laugh track.

Wrex was as happy as a kid in a candy store. Every time he thought he may run out of targets, a dozen or so decided to pop around a corner and try to take him on. He would angle his new favorite toy, which he was thinking of naming 'Kalros,' and a few seconds later he would be again despairing at the possibility that he wouldn't have any more targets. He was having so much fun that he couldn't help but laugh, constantly.

Liara was happy, she didn't have to take much fire and could occasionally offer a barrier or a biotic push to slip the Geth into the air for easier takedown from either Shepard or Wrex. By the end of this sieg, she hoped that she would impress Alex with her skills. She was careful to keep her hopes to the subconscious, though, and her focus on the immediate present.

Kaidan was not having as much fun as Shepard and Wrex, and wasn't as happy as Liara to be relegated to support. He was a decorated Marine and one of humanity's best Biotics for fuck's sake, he shouldn't have been stuck in the middle of a parade of death with nothing to do but make pot shots at targets already doomed to die without his intervention.

It was this happiness sandwich with a miserable ham that made it to the Mass Effect Core, and Shepard gave the order, "Kaidan, check Infiltration Team's omnigrenades."

Kaidan nods, though he wonders why the commander had made up a name for the other team. A quick update to his HUD and he knows where to look for the charges, and he is surprised to find that they are still in place. And then he sees that there are additional charges that the infiltration team had not mentioned.

"Sir, we've got a problem," He says when he gets back to Shepard

"What've we got?"

"Extra explosives," Kaidan tells him, "Set around the Core, not ours."

Shepard narrows his eyes, then nods and turns to Wrex, "We're heading back the way we came."

"What?" Wrex turns from his latest victims to Shepard, "Why?"

"The Geth are gonna blow their own ship," He tells the Warlord, "I'd rather not be on it when it goes."

"Ah," Wrex nods, and without another word he sets off back the way they had come.

"Kaidan, rearguard, I need to warn Infiltration," Shepard orders, and while the Major nods, he presses a finger to his mic and calls, "Murphy, Garrus, you read?"

" _Yeah, we read,"_ Garrus's voice crackles into their ears, " _What's the situation?"_

"Kaidan just finished checking the explosives around the Core. He found more than you set."

" _Shit, you think the Geth are planning on blowing the ship to keep us from getting any new intel?"_

 _"_ That's exactly what I'm thinking," Shepard agrees, " _i'm pulling out my team, suggest you do the same."_

Garrus turns to look at Murphy, who frowns. They had been so close, literally a Geth away from taking the nod to each other, and wave for Ashley and Tali to move towards the wall nearest them.

"Set enough explosives on that wall to crack it open," Murphy tells them, "We're going to need a quick exit."

The explosive expert and the tech expert nod and dive across between covers as Murphy and Garrus suppress the Geth Prime that had been giving them trouble. The massive Geth was the last one in the bridge, and unfortunately they did not have Wrex and his cannon to take care of it.

While Tali and Ashley worked to set their explosives, going so far as to add the kitchen sink, the two Spectres were flanking the Prime. The Geth platform was concentrating its attention on Murphy, judging the cyborg to be the bigger threat. It stomps over to his cover, ignoring the smattering and skittering of multiple rounds compressing on its hardened alloy, and kicks the console that he had been hiding behind.

Murphy and the console are sent flying, and the Geth takes aim at the soaring Robocop. It gets off two shots, one managing to shatter Murphy's visor while the other misses, before Garrus tears a hole in it's side with his sniper. The high powered rifle hisses as it lets off steam, and the Turian sprints across the bridge so the Prime can't do the same thing to him.

Robocop collapses his visor, knowing that having half an active HUD was worse than having none at all. He had suffered a lot of disorientation in the past, when he hadn't been able to collapse it. A quick glance at Tali and Ashley tells him where they are in setting the explosives, and with that glance he has a plan. Pulling himself to his feet, Murphy narrows his eyes at the Prime as it advances on Garrus. Raising his pistol in one hand, he quickly empties the clip into the Geth's spine.

This doesn't do much more than return it's attention to him, but that had been the plan. He retreated, raising his second pistol and double tapping the Prime's flashlight as his other cooled down. The Geth raised it's own rifle, but a shot from Garrus's sniper renders the weapon useless. The Prime regards the rifle, then drops it and charges Murphy with intent to squish.

Murphy hears the women moving into cover behind him as he speeds his backstep. Five feet before the Prime reaches him, he hits explosive caked wall. Two feet before the Geth is set to stomp him, Murphy dives under its upraised leg, jumps into the air, and kicks it against the wall. The kick sends the Prime crashing into the explosives, and Murphy behind another console.

As soon as most of the cyborg Spectre is behind cover, Ashley detonates the explosives.

The world turns white for an instant, then the boom hits and sends everyone not already on their asses into that position. Ashley is the first to recover, and peeks over her cover, "Alright, Geth Prime down."

"Of course it is," Tali exclaims, loudly, "That blast was strong enough that I think it nearly ruptured my eardrum, through my suit!"

"Yeah, I've got an echoing in my ears right now," Garrus pipes up as he pulls his feet up. Turning to Murphy, he skips to the point, "Alright, you've got the hacking know how, what do we do?"

"They've probably set their explosives to detonate as soon as they detect an intrusion," Murphy tells them, "So we're going to be off the ship when the hacking starts."

"How are we going to manage that?" Tali asks

Muphy holsters his pistols, raises his right hand, and pops the spike out. Then he does something that only Garrus knew he could do, and pulls his hand off at the mid-forearm. Tali and Ashley stare as Murphy stabs his hand into the console in front of him, then he looks up at the Quarian and tells her, "Download your hack program into my hand, when we're off the ship, I'll start the process and we'll get as much data as we can before this place gets blown to kingdom come."

"Your arm can be detached?" Ashley asks as Tali steps up to the arm and gets to work

"Yeah," Murphy nods, and his smile is audible as he tells her, "A few decades back I tried to see if they could be upgraded with rockets, but the RND guys told me it was a really stupid idea."

"You wanted rocket arms?" Ashley frowns, "I thought you were a serious guy?"

Murphy raised an eyebrow, "Ashley, do you have any idea what it's like to have your emotions repressed for half a century?"

"Ah, no?"

"Well I do," Murphy waves his left hand, "And I can tell you, that is where the idea that I'm a serious guy comes from. My brain chemistry was monitored and suppressed by expert neurosurgeons before I managed to get control of OCP. So, what you've got now is the real Alex Murphy."

"Right, sorry sir."

"Nah, it comes up with everybody," Murphy assures her, patting her on the shoulder, "Even other species. Garrus asked the same thing his third day as my partner."

"It was awkward," Garrus tells her

"I can imagine," Tali steps up to join them as she speaks, telling them, "All set, Murphy."

"Alright, everyone through the hole," Murphy tells them, and one after the other, the team dives out of the hole in the side of ship's head. While they fall, Murphy contacts the distraction team, "Shepard, how you doing?"

" _We're almost at the exit,"_ Shepard tells him,as the commander take the knees out from under a Geth before it can get a shot at Kaidan. "three corridors away. What's your status?"

" _We're out,"_ Muprhy tells them, _"Sailing out and away as we speak."_

"Got it, Shepard out," Shepard disconnects, then turns to his team, "Double time, people."

Wrex grunts, and his steady stride turns into a charge, his massive bulk smashing as many Geth as Kalros mulches. Liara and Shepard pick up the pace, with Kaidan not a second behind. The berserk rush was not expected by the Geth, and they quickly leave the dozen that had been coming up behind them in the dust, and crash through the doorway to their entrance hole.

Twenty Geth wait for them, but Wrex mulches the first few while Liara and Kaidan shatter another few with their Biotics and Shepard tosses his last grenade. The Geth are destroyed or knocked away from the hole enough for the team to dive through the hole in the base of the ship. They soar through the opening and start their slow descent the hundred feet to the deck of Grid E.

"Spin!" Shepard orders, and almost as one, they spin to aim their rifles at the hole in the ship, where the Geth had started flinging themselves out of or taking aim from, "Fire!"

The four start firing, and light after light goes out. While they fall, Shepard relays to the Infiltration team that they had exited the ship. The team impacts Grid E as the Geth Ship is released from its moores. The last clamp holding onto the ship pushes it, and the ship gently coasts out of its prison, still suffering from the shot that had disabled around an hour and a half earlier.

Shepard, Wrex, Liara, and Kaidan watch as the ship coasts for a few thousand feet, hemorrhaging atmosphere and Geth platforms, before it explodes. Shepard lifts his hand to the side of his helmet and asks, "Murphy, we get anything?"

" _Yeah, a planet. Virmire."_


	10. Regrouping

**Robocops and Robbers 10**

The team sat in the conference room, each in their own chair as a holographic display of everything they had stolen from the Geth was played out in the center of the room. They watched from about sixty different points of view as the planets Virmire and Feros were displayed to them.

"These tin heads were at Feros?" Wrex asks, that being the first question to come to mind

"Maybe," Tali agrees, "Though we have no way of knowing if this particular ship was there, Geth are a collective intelligence, they share information. This could be footage from other Geth that was downloaded to the Ship's Server."

"Regardless of that, we now have confirmation that the Feros Colony is under Geth attack," Murphy frowns, then he turns his gaze to the left, where the three holograms of the Councilors stand and watch the videos with the team, "Councilors, we're going to move in to aid the Colony. I recommend you send a scouting team to Virmire to assess the situation."

"Yes, an excellent suggestion, Detective," Demos nods, he flicks open his omnitool and inputs some commands, "We shall allocate an STG team to do reconnaissance of the Virmire facility. We recommend that you split your team to deal with the attack on the Colony as well as Saren's holdings on Noveria."

"Somebody on Noveria actually contacted you?" Garrus asks with incomprehension. He and Murphy had on several occasions needed to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare that was Noveria Corporate Law.

"Not… exactly," Tevos sighs, "Tela Vasir, a fellow spectre, received word from the Shadow Broker that Matriarch Benezia made her way to the Binary Helix facility through a local through station."

"One of the Spectres has contact with the Shadow Broker?" Murphy asks, eyes narrowing

Sparatus waves a hand, "As you know, the Spectres are placed above common law for the sake of Galactic Security. While we may not like that Spectre Vasir is in contact with the Broker, she is within her purview of the law."

Murphy nods, not liking what the Counselor was telling him, but understanding it. As the Counselors vanish to arrange matters from their end, he turns to Shepard, "Your ship your call, how do you want to handle this?"

Shepard frowns, rubs his chin, then nods to himself, "You, Garrus, Wrex, and Liara will move to take Feros. As much use as I could get from you Wrex, I'm sure you'd prefer to have more room to work with. And I don't want to have to put Liara against her mother."

Wrex nods in agreement with Shepard's assessment, and Liara nods in thanks. She is glad that the recent firefight had removed the need for formalities, it made the necessary decisions seem more personal than practical.

"At the same time, Kaidan, Ash, Tali and I will try to intercept Benezia before she has the chance to get off Noveria. Our aim will be capture, but if not… sorry Liara, but the team comes first."

Liara swallows heavily, and nods again in understanding.

"Alright, now that's done," Shepard sits back down, "Alex, you take the Shuttle to Feros. It wouldn't last long enough in Noveria's atmosphere to keep aloft, so we'll need the Normandy."

"Got it," Murphy nods, he checks his internal star map and tells the other members of his team, "Get some shut eye, we've got ten hours until we're going to have to split with the Normandy."

The Feros team nods and gets up, and then the Noveria team does the same after Shepard waves them out. The three Spectres them convene and the two human Spectres give Garrus hard looks.

"What?" The Turian asks

"You are a Spectre too, you know?" Shepard asks, "You're our equal."

Garrus snorts, "Maybe on paper, but you've got more ship experience than me and Murphy's been alive longer than either of us put together. I'll take my time before I claim the lead, learn from two of the best and all that."

Murphy and Shepard exchange looks and each give their own version of a shrug of acceptance. The trio then sit down at the larger chairs and table that rise from the center of the conference room and Shepard pulls out a deck of cards for them to play some games with.

"So what were we on when we broke off?" The Spectre asks

"I think it was Blackjack," Garrus notes

"No, Texas Hold 'Em was the last one we did," Murphy corrects

"Huh, well I don't remember it," Garrus snorts, "Guess we'll have to play it again."

"Sorry boys," Shepard tells them, "Dealer's choice today, and I'm thinking a game of seven card stud, personally."

As the Spectres get into their game of poker, Ashley and Wrex exchange stares from across the cargo hold. Though they never look at the same time, there is a definite tension in the air due to the fact that Ashley was just plain curious now. After Murphy and Wrex had explained a few things to her before they had reached Therum, she had been thinking about it in her odd hours.

Wrex was just waiting for her to pop and ask all of the annoying questions he had heard over his many centuries. Eventually he stops petting his shotgun and waits for her to cast a look his way one more time, "What?"

Ashley jumps at being caught, but rallies and asks, "Murphy said that your Clan, uh, 'makes love, not war.' What did he mean?"

Wrex rolls his eyes, "Exactly what it sounds like, any fertile male or female has one job for Clan Urdnot, making babies. Every other member of the Clan has one job, keeping them safe."

"That sounds… harsh," Ashley tells him with sympathy

"Ha!" Wrex laughs, "That's Tuchanka! You should hear what the Females do!"

"What do the Females do?" Ashley asks before she can help herself

"They spread word that they're the fertile ones and use themselves as bait!" Wrex tells her with a laugh, "Oh, can't tell you how many other Clans are stupid enough to fall for it."

Ashley struggles to find something to say, but eventually returns to working on her rifle. Wrex smiles, having successfully gotten the human to stop staring at him every time he turned his head.

Tali was having a fine time of making sure that everything was calibrated for a hazardous environment, talking with Joker and the chief engineer Adams the whole while, "I think there's a few loose panels somewhere on the bottom of the ship, I can go out and check!"

This was said while she was hanging upside down behind the drive core and spot welding a microfracture that would have taken six years to cause an issue.

From twenty feet below, Engineer Adams calls up to her, "Kid, it's fine! The Normandy is rated for a class six planet, even without the thermal plating. You don't have to worry about it!"

"Seriously, Tali, relax," Joker calls from over the intercom, "I haven't met anyone this anal since myself, and that was back in flight school!"

Tali stops working and looks down at Adams, "I feel like there's a story there."

"Oh, no doubt," Adams smiles, "But I don't think Joker's just going to tell it over the intercom."

"You got that right!" Joker tells them, "Tali, come on up and we can swap stories!"

Tali, not really fighting the peer pressure, lowers herself to the floor and unhooks herself from the engineering winch. She smiles at Adams under her mask, and the Engineer returns the expression. After exchanging goodbyes, she heads to the elevator and takes it to the CIC. From there she moves to the cockpit and leans over Joker's chair.

The FL leans his head up and smiles at her, "Come on, you're gonna be here a while. Sit in the copilot's chair."

Tali blinks, "Am I allowed?"

"Yeah, we're running off Spectre Regs now anyway, so I think you'll be fine. Plus, we don't actually have a copilot, so that chair's just sort of taunting me with its emptiness."

The Quarian girl gives him a funny look as she sinks into the chair. She looks between all of the displays with interest, "Wow, I've never been this close to the action before."

Joker raises an eyebrow and challenges, "Wanna learn how?"

"To fly!?"

"Of course."

"Yes!"

"Great," Joker flicks a few settings and then passess a screen over to her, "That's the basic flight simulator, play around with that until you feel like you aren't going to crash us every ten minutes."

The Executive Officer of the Normandy, Pressly, who had stalked up to berate Joker for letting the Alien girl onto the bridge of the System's Alliance most advanced Frigate stops before even the first word can leave his mouth. His gaze flicks between the excited young girl, clearly a teenager, and Joker sitting serenely in his chair, and realizes that the Flight Lieutenant had managed to tear the girl from the engine room, where there were even more classified secrets that he was glad she no longer had access to.

As the XO stalked off, Joker nods to himself, happy to have given Tali something to do with her free time. He had not planned any of the things that Pressly thought he had, but he was glad to have Tali out of the engine room all the same. She was like a hyperactive kid in a candy store in the engine room, while here she had the focus that he did when first learning to fly. It was a calming thing, flying, and he felt she needed that after all of the crazy crap that the Commander and his fellow Spectres had dragged her into.

Tali was experiencing something strange, serenity as Joker would call it. She was in the zone as she controlled the digital ship and flew it through as many maneuvers as she could. She appreciated that Joker had set the program to the easiest setting, as she knew that if it had been harder it would have destroyed the experience for her. She could tell just from the lack of more complex controls that she was not at the highest level, but she looked forward to the day she could use those controls. She had tried changing the difficulty once, when she had first started, and immediately went back to the original setting so that she didn't kill thousands of digital people.

Kaidan was the most boring of the team, sitting in his little corner of the lounge with both feet up on his little counter sitting in the armchair he had requisitioned from the Order before the team had returned to the Normandy. He was also the only one taking Murphy's orders seriously, and slept soundly in the chair specifically designed for mid-day naps that didn't lead to back pain.

All the while, as the team regained their equilibrium, the Normandy soared through the black sea of stars towards the first of three Mass Relays.


	11. Scenic Destruction

**Robocops and Robbers 11**

Noveria was really cold. It seemed to seep into the bones, even through the Team's environmental suits. They'd managed to get through the Local station in about three hours, which led to several interesting interactions and the station administrator getting arrested, and now they were driving a requisitioned Mako through the icy tundra towards the Peak 15 lab.

Once they had removed Anolais, the Salarian administrator, getting out had been easy, as had getting the information. Now the Mako was making good time across the snowed path along the side of the mountain range.

"Geth!" Ash calls from her place at the turret, opening fire.

Shepard, on the wheel, steps on the gas and rams a Ameture off the side of the road and down a cliff. The Ameture, a four legged monstrosity, tries to find purchase on the edge before falling to its doom, but fails. Kaiden, sitting in the shotgun seat, closes his eyes and flares his biotics to push the Mako away from the ledge, forcing it back towards the road. Tali, not having much to do at the moment, just hugs her shotgun and waits for them to reach their destination.

The Mako drives past several teams of Geth, refusing to slow down for anything but pot-shots. They make good time that way, though they leave the way back more exciting for their extraction, and reach the Peak 15 in about fifteen minutes. The tank slides into the hanger, and the team minus Ashley hops out.

"Tali, door," Shepard orders, and the girl nods, opening her omnitool and pressing a few buttons.

The hanger doors close, while the massive shutters that lead further into the facility start to rise. As they do, there is a burst of pulse fire from Geth hidden on the other side and Shepard orders everyone behind the Mako, "Ash, light 'em up!"

Ash takes his order to heart and starts laying into the extended hanger with gusto, reducing several crates and the Geth behind them to scrap. When the Geth Prime reveals itself, it lasts only a second longer than its smaller compatriots, losing an arm and a leg before losing power completely as it is blow to smithereens.

Ash climbs out of the Mako and the team advances through the hanger. Eyes remain swiveled as it is left and they enter an airlock with a pair of turrets facing inwards. Some quick repairs courtesy of Tali and they are out the other end, and that's when they hear the screeching. Looking around, Kaiden mutters, "I think we're about to find out why the turrets were aimed this way…"

A screech draws their eyes to a massive insectoid creature as it launches a glob of some sort of green substance at Shepard. The Commander dodges out of the way of the slow moving ball, as does Tali who was standing behind him. The team unloads on the creature, reducing it to bloody chunks and viscera before turning to see what had happened to whatever the glob had struck.

The wall was slowly dissolving away.

Shepard frowns and then tells the team, "Alright, buckets back on."

Everyone nods and while Shepard, Ash, and Kaiden re-expand their helmets, Tali reactivates her visor shield. They had just finished when a hissing sound reached their ears, and all three look down to see a small slug like creature slithering towards them at high speed. Shepard, not one to take risks, pulls his pistol and shoots the small creature.

This turns out to be both a good and bad idea; good because the creature explodes, bad because the explosion throws him and Ashley off their feet. They crash into the wall behind them, thankfully not the one currently being eaten through, and flop onto the ground. The Commander groans and pulls himself to his feet, ordering, "Kaiden, you see any of those things, you send them at the big bugs."

"Got it," The Major agrees as he helps Ash to her feet. Once everyone is back up, they pull their main weapons and move on.

To escape the large antechamber they find themselves in, they climb a series of stairs, which attracts the attention of more bug like creatures. They hiss and spit their acid globs at the team, and on a hunch, Shepard shoots the globs. The balls of acid explode in the air as their surface tension is destroyed and splat onto every nearby surface.

Ash and Tali quickly unload on the bugs as Kaiden lifts and throws a pair of slugs at them. The bugs screech and splat as the slugs explode against them and the gunfire cripples them. When they flop to the ground, dead, the team starts advancing.

Their cautious pace makes the trek to the tram terminal take longer than it would have otherwise. It is warranted though, as it seems that there is a pair of bugs around every corner and hiding in every vent. Each encounter takes only a short burst of gunfire and some controlled biotics to deal with before the team can move on.

Finally, after they reach and activate the tram, Tali asks as it starts to pick up speed, "What are those things?"

"No idea," Kaiden shakes his head, and turns to Ash and Shepard

Both shake their heads, and the Commander notes, "Whatever they are, they aren't on our side. That's all that matters right now, the rest we'll figure out later."

The other three nod, and Ash snorts, "Hope the others are having an easier OP than we are."

She would be sadly mistaken in that assumption, for the Feros team was busy ducking behind small stone pillars in a staircase while strange spider-like Geth are hopping all around firing at them.

Liara, behind the lowest pillar, snaps out of cover and throws a singularity to freeze a pair of the Spider Geth in midair. Murphy and Wrex pop from their own cover and a hail of bullets reduce the Geth to scrap. Garrus provides covering fire so the pair aren't shot by any of the other dozen hoppers, "Have I ever mentioned that I hate the Geth?"

Liara turns to him, and gives him a weak smile, "You've not mentioned it, but I can share the sentiment."

"Less talking, more killing," Wrex growls at them as he aims his mulcher up and unloads a thousand rounds a minute into the air. After he lets go of the trigger, there is a crunch and a piece of the ceiling falls through the shaft. There are crashes, groans, and the sound of metal on stone as Geth are crushed by the falling debris.

Murphy turns to Wrex, "Did you mean to do that?"

"Nope," Wrex shrugs, then pulls his shotgun one handed and blasts the head off of a Spider Geth, "Was aiming for that one."

Murphy nods. Then turns around the corner, both machine pistols raised. He leads the team up the stairs, and they manage to destroy any of the Geth still standing from Wrex's ceiling collapse before they find themselves on an open expanse of floor in a curved room, "Alright, the signal jammer should be somewhere around-"

Gunfire breaks him from his words, and he ducks behind a dip in the floor as a Krogan as large as Wrex charges around the bend in the room. He spots Wrex, and forgetting everyone else rushes the other Krogan. The two smash into each other, and it is quickly proven who is the more skilled opponent, as Wrex easily drops the younger foe to the ground and puts a double tap from his shotgun under the crest. As the Krogan goes limp, the Geth reveal themselves.

The synthetics pop from the various bits of detritus they had hidden behind and start firing at Wrex, who takes more than his fair share of fire before he can duck under cover. The Krogan pulls a smoking bullet from his crest and grunts, "I think I need a minute."

Liara and Garrus, ducked in the doorway, pop out of cover and fire as one. Garrus's shot takes out a rocket Geth, which in turn takes out another two Geth in front of it when it the rocket launcher it held goes off as it clatters to the ground. Liara manages to put two Geth in Stasis and destroy another two before she has to duck back behind the doorway.

Murphy jumps from his precarious cover and destroys the two Geth in Stasis, grabbing one as a mobile cover as it falls, and slams it into a third before he comes to rest back in hiding behind a large Geth drop-pod. Wrex, after his healing factor kicks in, pulls himself up and rests his mulcher onto the top of his current bit of cover, and the Krogan corpse sags a little at the weight of the weapon.

The world again becomes a roar of searing lead as the mobile turret destroys whatever Geth haven't gotten behind cover. Wrex lets up on the trigger and looks around, "Alright, looks like they're dead."

Murphy stands, shoots the head off of one last Geth, and then nods, "Let's find the jammer."

They find it, and also find that it was reduced to a large paperweight by Wrex's mulcher. Murphy snorts at the sight and Garrus rolls his eyes as they turn back around and the Turian puts his finger to his ear, "Fai Dan, do you read?"

" _Loud and Clear, Spectre. Good to hear that you're still alive,"_ The commander of the Colony's defense forces replies, _"Thanks for getting out Comms back on, now we can send a proper SOS. Where's your team heading next?"_

Garrus pulls the map up on his omnitool, checks it and the list of objectives that he'd gotten from the Colonists, and tells the human, "We've cleared the lower levels, grabbed your people the water and battery, Looks like our next target is to clear the geth from the Exo-Geni tower on the other end of the bridge."

 _"Good Luck Spectre, Fai Dan out."_

Wrex cautiously leads the way back down the stairs, checking up and down to make sure that there are no more of the Spider Geth around. They descend to a floor just below the one the signal jammer had been on and step out of the stairwell and up to an elevator. They call it, and step in.

They check their weapons, make sure that there are no seals in their armor, and then wait for the usual slow pace of the elevator to get to them so that they can start killing each other in madness. Thankfully, the elevator deposits them in a garage before it can get to that point, but the long wait in the lifting box makes them come out with guns ready and tempers frayed just a little bit. As a result, they reduce the ten Geth that had been waiting for them into scrap before the synthetics have any chance to raise their weapons.

Then they spot the Mako, sitting in the middle of the garage, just waiting for them. They carefully surround it, and Murphy checks the interior to make sure that nobody is hidden within. Once that is done, he hops off and tells Garrus, "We should probably make sure this thing isn't booby trapped."

His fellow Spectre nods, and the pair of them get to work looking over the ship. While they do, Liara and Wrex have what may be their first ever discussion, "Think they've killed your mom yet?"

"I certainly hope not!"

"You want her to kill them?"

"No! I would just prefer it if both parties could make it out of whatever altercation they have… alive."

"So you want your mother to rot in prison?"

"As opposed to dying, quite possibly."

"Hm, not sure how I feel about that."

"Do you still have your mother, Wrex?"

"Mmm, no. No dad either, had to kill him."

"You killed your father!?"

"He tried to kill me first."

"I don't think that makes it better!"

"Mmm."

They fall into an uncomfortable silence, which lasts another minute before Murphy tells them that the Mako is clean. All four enter the vehicle, and then activate the gates, ready to tackle the bridge and the tower beyond.


	12. Going through the Missions

**Robocops and Robbers 12**

The Mako screeches to a halt outside the Exo-Geni office, with Garrus shouting, "We've got more of those spider things!"

"I'm on it," Wrex chuckles, turning the turret on the encroaching Geth.

A grand total of ten seconds later and the entrance to the office is cleared. The team hops out of their ride and pull their weapons. Murphy, as they move towards the entrance, notes, "This doesn't make any sense."

"What? That the Geth are attacking this no name colony?" Wrex asks.

"Actually, that makes a great deal of sense," Liara interrupts, "Feros is one of the most well preserved Prothean colonies every found, and it would certainly hold a large amount of data on anything the Protheans held."

"Why aren't you here, then?" Garrus asks, curious

"Exo-Geni refused OCP's proposal for a joint dig," Murphy tells him, "They managed to pull the wool over the Council's eyes with how extensive the ruins were, and when everyone figured out what they'd done, it was tied into a very neat legal bow."

"Then what doesn't make sense?" Garrus asks.

"Why the office is so far from the colony," Murphy tells him, then he hops into a pit with some broken stairs at the bottom, "Looks like the door's over here."

The team enters the office building, and instead of the main entrance, it looks like they've found themselves in the parking garage. Wrex chuckles, "Looks like we're lost."

"We aren't lost," Murphy objects, "We're just, taking an alternate approach."

Garrus rolls his eyes, "Well your app-"

"Varren!" Liara interrupts him, and the four turn their guns on the charging beasts.

A quick hail of bullets reduces the number of varren to the point that the survivors retreat, scampering into holes along the walls and barking at each other in anger and pain. The team lower their weapons and move towards the door on the other end of the hallway, but their advance is stopped when Wrex gets shot in the face.

The massive Krogan grunts as his barrier flares and collapses to the sudden multitude of bullets, and he ducks his head and shouts, "Hey!"

Murphy and Garrus, somewhat used to unexpected and intense shootouts, turn their own guns to the attacker. They see a young woman somewhere in her thirties desperately firing into the Krogan's armored hide, clearly hyperventilating.

Before they can do anything, from call for calm to shooting her with stun rounds, the woman freezes in a stasis field erected by Liara. The woman's eyes twitch as she tries to take control of her body back, but fails. A silent scream escapes her lips as the Robocop gently takes the gun from her hands and waves for the asari to drop the effect.

Lisbeth, as her nametag read, falls away from them and starts crawling backwards on her hands and knees, "Please, oh god! Don't hurt me!"

"You okay?" Garrus asks Wrex as Murphy approaches the cowering woman.

"Fine," Wrex pulls a few bullets out of his carapace, "Impressed, though. Kid got the drop on me, that's hard to do."

"If she's been hiding from the Varren, it makes sense that she'd be able to mask her presence from even you," Liara notes.

The three carry on their conversation for a minute or two before Murphy rejoins them, "Alright, I've got her access card, should get us through any locked doors."

"Learn anything interesting?" Wrex asks.

"I did," Murphy nods, "Exo-geni has been conducting human experimentation on the colonists, exposing them to a local entity called a Thorian."

"Local entity?" Garrus asks.

"It's a plant that controls minds," Murphy explains further, then transfers some data to Garrus's omnitool, "Doctor Baynham has been collecting evidence that she planned to bring to the colonial board."

"Bet the Geth attack put a damper on that," Wrex snorts.

"It did," Murphy nods, "She had reached the extent of her investigative abilities when this whole mess happened."

"Isn't Dr. Baynham the woman we were asked to find?" Liara asks.

"Oh yeah!" Garrus grunts, "we were supposed to keep an eye out for her."

"Well she was keeping an eye out for us, instead," Wrex pulls another bullet from his cheek, "Let's go, I wanna kills something."

"Let's hope Shepard isn't running into any hotile locals on his end," Garrus notes to his partner, "Cause that sucked, funny, but I wouldn't wanna be Wrex's face right now."

\- Noveria -

Shepard growls as he hides behind heavy cover, "I told you we should have just killed them when we had the chance."

"We didn't know they were gonna start shooting at us, skipper," Ash notes from beside him, then peeks her head up, "Shit, Tali, they've got a Mech!"

"On it," Tali opens her omnitool and starts to hack, "Cover me!"

Kaiden and Shepard pop out of cover; the former throwing out a biotic explosion to get the Peak 15 security staff from getting close to their position, the latter to take a few shots with the rifle he got from the _Order_ at the advancing Mech.

"How the hell do they have an Ed?" Shepard asks, rhetorically, "Binary Helix doesn't have a reputation for using other company's products."

"OCP makes good stuff," Ashley notes, and pops out of cover to take a few shots at the security guards.

All in all, there were twelve less rent-a-cops than there were at the start of the fight, and the Spectre team was down only on ammo.

"Got it," Tali exclaims, then swipes her hand across her screen.

"NEW ADMINISTRATOR ACCEPTED!" Ed-2009 exclaims, and turns its weapons on the security officers, to their horror.

As the mech turns their attackers to paste, Shepard asks Tali, "What did you do?"

"Alex gave me admin access to most of OCP's ordinance," Tali tells him, smiling under her mask as she picks Ed's targets, "Not the ships or anything like that, but for stuff like firearms and mechs."

"Firearms?" Ashley asks.

"Yeah," Tali nods, "Everything OCP makes apparently has a kill switch installed that lets anyone with high enough clearance to take control.

"Who the hell has clearance for that?" Shepard asks, now worried for the state of the Alliance's military contracts.

"Detective Murphy said that it was him and me," Tali tells him, "And that he's gonna take it away once the mission's over."

Shepard decides that it probably isn't a good idea to point out that doing so would still leave his fellow Spectre with the most dangerous big red button in history. Murphy was a Spectre, they were all big red buttons, really.

"I think everyone's dead," Kaiden notes, looking up from cover, only to duck down when Ed-2009 starts to swivel in his direction, "Uh, Tali, you know the kinda reputations those things have, right?"

"They're really good at killing things?" Tali ventures.

"Yeah," Kaiden agrees, then adds, "Everything."

"Everything?"

" _Everything_ ," he emphasises, then tells her, "I'd rather not end up a fine red mist, so could you shut it down?"

"Oh, alright," Tali sighs, then adds, "But we're coming back for it when we're done. I've always wanted a big robot puppy, and this is perfect."

It really was, because the Ed-2009 had fixed its ancient predecessors problems with stability and stairs with the simple addition of a second pair of legs. The end result was a giant mech that resembled a puppy with guns for ears and a disposition towards biting.

OCP had built the equivalent of a robotic chiwawa.

\- Feros -

Wrex laughs as the Geth ship fell out of sight, "Ha! Suck it!"

"Suck what?" Liara asks.

Wrex freezes, then after a few seconds of silence he tells her, "the barrel of my gun… is what that means."

"Oh," Liara smirks behind the Krogan's back, "Is that what it means?"

"Yes," Wrex nods, slowly, turning. Then he sees her smirk and he breaks into an even bigger guffaw than before, "Damn, kid, you got me!"

"Yes I did," Liara saunters past him and out the main doors.

Murphy and Garrus chuckle as they follow her, the Turian patting Wrex on the arm as he passes in commiseration, "She got me a few times, too."

"How is there that much deviousness in such a little girl?" Wrex groans

"No idea," Garrus shrugs, "Just be glad she isn't after you, Alex has to deal with it all the time."

"Does he even have a quad?" Wrex asks.

"I'm pretty sure only Krogan have a quad," the former C-Sec officer notes.

Wrex lets out a laugh, "No wonder you're such a pansy, Turian."

Garrus rolls his eyes, lapsing into silence as they exit the Exo-Geni office. He sees Lizbeth Baynham waiting for them at the Mako and turns a questioning glance at Murphy.

"Dr. Baynham has state's evidence," the other Spectre tells him, "and it would be somewhat cruel to leave her all alone out here."

"Yes, left alone in a mass of Prothean ruins," Liara snorts, "what could be worse?"

Alex smiles at her, "You know what I mean."

Liara smiles back at him, then climbs into the Mako, "So what's our plan?"

"We drop Dr. Baynham off with her family, then we figure out what Saren wanted with the Prothean," Murphy tells her, getting behind the wheel.

"Where is this big plant anyway?" Wrex asks, grabbing the guns again.

Murphy activates the vehicle and tells him, "Under the colony."

\- Noveria -

"Alright," Tali flicks her omnitool and a hard hologram pad comes into existence in her hands, from it rises a three dimensional map of the room they know Benezia to be behind, "Here we go."

Shepard points at the entrance in front of them, "They've bottled us in, this is the only entrance we can reach without running into a line of fire from the Geth or Benezia's commandos."

"So what's the plan, Shepard?" Kaiden asks.

"We spring the trap," He tells his friend, then grins and points over Tali's shoulder, "With that."

The Ed-2009 slumps in the middle of the floor, and Kaiden shivers, "You do remember the vids, right boss?"

"I do," Shepard rolls his eyes, "I also know that there've been more than two hundred years of updates so that he doesn't fill us full of holes."

"You really taking that risk, skipper?" Ashley asks, knowing that it's only the desperate and the stupid that buy the Ed-2009s when there were dozens of better models out there, though for a lot more money.

"Hell no," Shepard grunts, "We're pushing it through the door then hiding."

"Aw," Tali pouts, "But I want one!"

"Ask Murphy when you see him again," Ash tells her, "I'd rather not have two tons of friendly fire up my ass."

Tali sighs, "I'll get to work."

"Link visual feeds to Ed's camera's" Shepard tells his team, "We need to know what we're facing before we get in there, and not just a scan. I want us with visuals."

The other three nod and when Tali activates the cumbersome mech, they link their feeds into the machine. It starts up, jerking to its feet and looking around. Hidden behind cover, they watch as it scrolls through options on its HUD, before finally selecting the 'Patrol' option.

The Ed-2009 trudges through the door they'd opened. It led to a hallway, with Benezia at the other end. Tali plots the mech's course, and it opens the doorway on the other end of the hallway. Shepard narrows his eyes when he sees that Benezia is indeed there, standing atop a large platform facing the biggest bug he'd ever seen.

Two minutes later and he knows exactly what kind of creature it is, "Rachni? The fuck?"

"I thought the Krogan wiped out the Rachni?" Kaiden asks.

"That isn't what's important right now," Tali notes.

Shepard looks at her and tilts his head, knowing she can't see his raised eyebrow.

"Benezia is talking to the Ed," Tali points out, then adds, "Like it's you, Shepard."

The Spectre blinks, then turns his attention to the feed, and sure enough, the Matriarch was carrying on a conversation with the Ed-2009 as though it were Shepard, carrying on the second half of a conversation.

"She's insane," Ashley notes.

"Probably," Shepard agrees, then sighs, "Shit."

"What?" Kaiden asks.

"How are we supposed to tell Liara that we had to kill her insane mother?" Shepard asks, "That's like when they shot Old Yeller! And who doesn't cry when Old Yeller gets shot?"

"Who?" Tali asks

"Old movie," Kaiden tells her, "Shepard loves the classics."

"Save it for later," Ashley demands, asking, "The hell are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, we better act fast," Shepard groans as Benezia decides to flex her biotic power and the feed to the Ed-2009 cuts off.

The explosion from the other room isn't encouraging.


	13. Mind Control

**Robocops and Robbers 13**

Shepard and his team exchange glances, then he takes a breath and activates the door leading into the Queen's chamber. A ball of biotic energy immediately flies through the open doorway, passing by the four of them as they watch from either side of the doorway.

"Shepard! Come out, Saren demands your death!"

"Just Saren, huh," Shepard growls lowly, not bothering to call back. He looks to Tali and raises his left hand. He quickly counts down from five before pumping his fist.

The Quarian girl nods and her fingers fly across her omnitool. The Ed-2009 just inside the doorway, still missing its head from when Benezia had torn it off, stands and starts charging towards the Matriarch.

Distraction achieved, Shepard, Ashley, and Kaiden move into the room. Quick bursts from their OCP rifles render the closest Geth inoperable and the Asari Commando's without their shields. Most of them flared back up with barriers, but those not quick enough went down in a rain of fire.

"Kaiden, drop shields and Geth, Ash and I'll take 'em out," Shepard orders, folding his rifle away and pulling his submachine gun instead. The Hurricane was a staple of the N7 arsenal, and Shepard liked to keep all his old gear in his quarters. He always kept at least one of his classics on him for every mission, and he liked having an automatic to back up his three shot rifle.

Ash swapped to her shotgun, and the two of them started taking down anyone without their shields up.

The Asari wised up quickly to their strategy, and soon Kaiden wasn't taking shields and instead focusing his fire on the Geth, which went down easily enough under his fire. Shepard and Ashley were instead focusing on the Asari Commandos.

All the while, Tali kept batting at Benezia's overcharged barrier to keep the Matriarch distracted.

\- Feros -

Murphy smiled as Lizbeth hugged her mother, it was nice to save the day every now and then. He turns his attention to Wrex, "Get everything out of him?"

"Yeah," Wrex steps away from the Exo-Geni bottom feeder that had been ranting and waving a gun around when their team had returned with the doctor, "Whimp didn't even wait for me to start breaking stuff. Just started squealing like a pig."

Murphy nods, but Garrus steps up to him, "You realize we aren't gonna be able to take this to court, right? Much as I want to shoot that ass, we did coerce his confession."

"Garrus," Murphy claps his friend on the back, "We're Spectres."

"That doesn't mean we should go above the law!" Garrus growls, "You taught me that, Murphy."

"You're right," Murphy agrees, then smiles a little softer, "We're not taking his confession to court, we're taking it to the Exo-Geni board and threatening to take it public before the investigation Dr. Bayhnam started comes to a conclusion."

"What'll that do?" Garrus asks

"For a start, they'll be leaving the colony alone, and for second, they're probably going to pay any medical expenses to make sure the colonists don't sue them to destruction."

"Ah, they'll be trying to avoid another Detriot v OCP," Garrus nods, getting it.

"Exactly."

Liara steps up to them, "I believe everything is secure here, should we head back to the colony and make contact with the Thorian?"

"Yeah," Garrus nods, "Not much more we can do before we figure out what Saren wanted with it."

\- Noveria -

Shepard spins into cover, waiting for the telltale hiss of overheated weapons before lobbing a grenade over the Asari's barricade. He takes aim and three bursts of fire at the Commandos as they break cover to avoid the explosive brings them down. He turns to see how his team is doing.

Kaiden, smart enough not to get locked in a biotic battle with Asari, is doing a lot of subtle throws, smashing crates and other objects at his targets before taking them down once they're distracted. Ashley is making better use of her armor than he would have the nerve to, charging at her own Asari targets and laying them out with a series of loud discharges of her shotgun and a concussive shot against the more hardy Geth that get in her way.

It's clear that his team has taken care of most of the enemies, with the exception of the Matriarch and the Rachni Queen in the tank everyone else was dead. Shepard waves for Kaiden and Ashley to circle around the tank to take the Matriarch from behind while he moves directly at her.

Over the comm, he tells Tali, "Alright, back off with the Mech, let's see what she's going to do."

"That's a terrible idea, Shepard," Tali notes, and he has to smirk at her response.

"Be that as it may," He notes, "We do need to talk to her, or at least stun her so we can interrogate her back on the Normandy."

Tali reluctantly pulls the remains of Ed-2009 away from the Matriarch's Barrier, and the blue woman immediately drops it. She growls at Shepard, her eyes only for him, "Saren has decried that you are to die, Shepard!"

"Well I love disappointing assholes," Shepard tells her, moving slowly forward, eyes narrowed and legs ready to throw him out of the way of whatever biotic attack she plans to start with. He glares at her through his visor, "What made you join his side, anyway? Couldn't have been his cause, I hear Matriarchs are better than that."

"We are the pinnacle of life!" Benezia agrees, "The apex, and Saren aims to preserve us in this state, perfect, for eternity."

"Preserve you?" Shepard palms his Hurricane, "You preserve food, you preserve a corpse, you don't preserve things that are still alive."

"And we are all already dead," The Matriarch agrees, then thrusts a hand out and a mass of black energy erupts from her towards him.

Seeing the singularity, one of the harder attacks to dodge out of the way from, coming right at him, Shepard curses and dives back down the stairs. He lets out a few choice curses as he lands on the ground, and rolls back to his feet as the ball of energy splashes against the wall behind him. He feels the tug, but he's far enough away that he's able to move forward instead of getting forced back.

He looks to the top of the stairs and raises his gun as the Matriarch steps to the edge. Her form is wreathed in Biotic energy as she readies another attack, but then she crumples to the ground as the discharge of Ash's OCP lightning rifle strikes her in the back.

Shepard takes to the stairs two at a time to catch her before she falls all the way to the ground. On the other side of the platform he sees Ash and Kaiden, the former folding her rifle and the later releasing his hold over his biotics.

"Good thinking you two," He tells them, then looks towards the entrance, "Tali, it's clear."

The Quarian pops out from behind the door frame and zips up the stairs, "So we didn't kill her, Liara is going to be happy."

"Maybe, maybe not," Shepard shrugs, "She still committed treason."

" _Not her fault_ ," The Matriarch in his arms whispers.

To his credit, the Spectre doesn't drop the Matriarch in his shock. He does look sharply down at her though, worried that she'd start tearing him apart while he's vulnerable.

The Matriarch's eyes are closed, her head resting on his arm. He furrows his brow, not sure she'd really even spoken. The others look just as confused, and Shepard asks, "Matriarch Benezia?"

" _She is here_ ," The Matriarch replies, " _She is sleeping, unconscious, and begging for help._ "

"Well Saren can't help her now," Ash notes.

" _She is not begging for his help,_ " The Matriarch whispers, and Shepard can start to feel something creeping into his mind, " _She is begging for escape from him._ "

"Why would she be begging to escape her boss?" Kaiden wonders.

"More importantly, who are you?" Shepard asks.

" _I am Rachni,_ " Benezia whispers, and the four conscious humanoids turn their eyes from the woman in Shepard's arms to the giant bug in its cage. Its many eyes track them as well, " _I see the sour yellow note in her mind, just as it was in my Mother's and her Mother's before her._ "

"What are you saying?" Tali asks.

" _The woman who wears her skin, is not her,_ " The Rahni Queen tells them, " _It is a puppet, controlled by masters more powerful than a thousand minds."_

"What?" Ash asks, "Where do the thousand minds come into this?"

"The Rachni Queens," Shepard tells her, "Wrex told me, the Krogan killed a thousand Queens over the course of the war."

" _Yes!_ " The Queen has Benezia whisper harshly, " _Taken and controlled, my kind were victims as are all the Asari here. Corrupted by the sour yellow note."_

"Stop," Shepard growls, and lowers his head, wishing he had a hand free to rub his eyes. He looks back at the Queen in the cage, "You… are coming with us."

" _What?_ " The Queen asks.

"I can't be responsible for releasing the Rachni back on the Galaxy," Shepard tells her, "But you have information that my team needs. You cooperate, we'll find somewhere to drop you off in the outer reaches of the galaxy. You make trouble, you die."

" _I… understand,_ " The Queen in the cage shuffles, " _how will you free me from this terrible confinement?_ "

Shepard glares at the glass box the Queen rests in, "Alright, we're going to be waiting for the storm to clear, then we'll see what we can do."

"What about Benezia?" Kaiden asks.

"You and Tali go check the med-lab to see if they've got any sedatives," Shepard tells him, "If not, we know Ash's taser works."

Ash smiles at that, "Might want to put her down, Skipper, I shoot her now, it'd probably fry you, too."

\- Feros -

"Murphy, stop the Mako," Garrus orders, and lurches as the vehicle is brought to a sudden stop.

"What's up?" his friend asks, looking up at him.

Garrus doesn't respond right away, instead unfolding his sniper and peering down the scope. The weapon moves subtly as he changes targets, "There are, things… at the garage entrance."

"What things?" Wrex grunts.

"Sending visual to the Mako," Garrus tells them, and the three non-snipers look at the screen to see a scrunched up green looking thing on the ground.

"It looks like a human that didn't get cooked right," Wrex notes.

"That or it's been mummified," Liara notes, recalling some vids she'd watched with both the crew of the Normandy and her previous dig teams.

Murphy nods, "You know what it reminds me of? Husks."

"Those mutated humans Shepard, Ashley, and Kaiden ran into back on Eden Prime?" Garrus asks while the other two exchange looks. They hadn't had the time to access the full reports from Eden Prime, so weren't sure exactly what the Spectres were talking about.

"Exactly, but more organic than tech," Murphy tells Garrus.

"Like they were grown?" Garrus asks, cautiously.

Wrex catches on, "You think the Thorian knows we're coming?"

"It is a creature that controls minds," Liara reasons, "that leads to the thought that it might also be able to read them."

"And the Geth have been attacking it for a solid week without reprieve," Murphy nods, "It has a right to be cautious. How are we going to approach him?"

"I'm thinking we do it like you did with Saleon," Garrus notes.

"I didn't approach Saleon, I distracted h… oh," Murphy shakes his head with a chuckle, "Good idea."

"Don't know who this Saleon guy was, but I'm guessing most of us are going to be making noise while Tin man finds the plant?" Wrex asks, a grin forming on his face, "Sounds like fun."

The robocop nods, then opens the door to the Mako, "give me two minutes to get into the colony, then start making noise."

"Take care of yourself, Alex," Liara tells him.

He smiles at her, "I will."

They watch him run off, moving as fast as his robotic legs could carry him. That meant that by the time the two minutes were up, they received a call from him, " _I'm in, and I've got some bad news._ "

"What?" Liara asks, worry in her voice.

" _It looks like the colonists are under the Thorian's control,_ " Murphy tells them, sending his visual feed to the Mako. It showed the colonists all getting weapons of varying themes of small and annoying out, each moving more robotically than the Geth or their friendly Spectre.

They were colonists, not soldiers, so the available weaponry led credence to the fact they hadn't expected to fight when they moved in. The only reasons they'd been able to hold the Geth off was because they set up good barricades quickly, had two good rifles, and there was only one entrances into the main colony; and thus the Thorian's pit.

"Damn," Wrex frowns, "Doesn't feel right, killing people who can't control themselves."

"Agreed," Garrus looks down at the team, "We stick with OCP issue."

Liara nods in agreement and Wrex chuckles; Kalros was OCP, so it had stun rounds too. That probably wouldn't take away from the fun of running around with a minigun, though.

" _Alright, move in when you're ready and I'll slip inside,_ " Murphy tells them.

"Everyone ready?" Garrus asks, and when he gets two nods, he hits the gas and rockets the Mako towards the garage.


	14. Stunning!

**Robocops and Robbers 14**

 **\- Outside the Garage -**

The Mako slides to a stop twenty feet from the garage into the Feros Colony, and there's a moment of collective silence. It end with a shriek, the grotesque caricatures of humans rising to their feet in unison and letting out keening noises.

"That just doesn't sound right," Wrex grunts, "No way a human could make that kinda sound."

Garrus doesn't say anything, just pops open the doors to the Mako and firing with his rifle. There is a spurt of green from the closest grotesque as it drops to the ground with a hole in its arm. The Turian steps out of their ride and takes aim at another while he notes, relieved, "These creepy fuckers aren't people. Green blood."

" _Understood_ ," Murphy's voice notes over the radio.

"That's a relief," Liara sighs as she steps out of the Mako after Garrus and hits one of the creepers with a throw, sending it careening over the edge of the bridge, "I'd hate to do that to a person."

"Don't sell yourself short, kid," Wrex says as he pulls himself out on the other side and mounts Kalros, "You've got the instincts for this kinda work."

As the Krogan gleefully reduces the remaining creepers to mulch, Liara looks to Garrus and notes, "I'm not sure if that's a good thing."

Garrus nods in understanding, but no more words are spared as they move to the door controls. A few button presses and the doors begin to rise.

 **\- Inside the Colony -**

Robocop moved a quietly as he could, making sure to avoid spaces where he could be seen by the controlled colonists. They really couldn't be in calling the shots, they were moving like old marionette puppets directed by something that didn't know what arms and legs were for.

He had to wonder what the Thorian actually looked like, Exo-Geni hadn't been kind enough to leave any pictures around. Notes had indicated that it was more fungus than actual plant, so all Murphy could really imagine as he slipped behind some containers and watched as the colonists set themselves up to repel his teammates was a giant mushroom.

After a few minutes, the area was clear and he could see the container the colonists had used to cover the path towards the Thorian. A few seconds of analysis and he could see the crane was still attached to the container.

Kneeling down, Murphy focuses on connecting to the the local extranet. A few seconds and he had to stop himself from grunting in frustration, the crane wasn't part of the network, which meant he was going to have to either move into the open to operate it, or spike the panel quickly and leave his arm there.

Either way he was going to need that distraction, "Whenever you're ready guys, make a lot of noise."

 **\- The Stairway to Feros Colony -**

"Heh, heh, heh," Wrex chuckles, the barrels of Kalros spinning, "I can do that."

Garrus and Liara take up position behind him as he lets out a bellowing laugh and starts to advance towards the staircase. Already behind them are two unconscious colonists with their arms bound with omni-forged cuffs, and in front of them were about to be many more getting the exact same treatment.

As Kalros bellows out a constant stream of electricity, Garrus radios Murphy, "that work?"

 **\- Crane Controls -**

"Like a charm," Alex smiles as he stabs his spike into the control panel and disconnects his left arm.

He swiftly moves back into cover as he accesses the crane controls. He finds the right commands and is very grateful that the Thorian clearly knows nothing about disabling machinery. With a lurch, the crane lifts the container from the passageway.

Murphy is about to make his way towards his arm, when a pair of colonists come running back. His eyes widen under his visor as one of them trips over some exposed wiring and falls. There is a cracking sound as her arm snaps, but she just picks herself back up and moves the crowbar acting as her weapon into her free hand.

Sighing, Murphy decides to take them both out before the Thorian can cause any more harm to them than he already has. He raises his pistol, and fires twice. The lightning rounds hit the two and they drop, jerking wildling as they spasm their way into muscle lock.

OCP had spend a lot of money on stun technology, billions of dollars over the years, and he was very glad to see that they actually worked as he'd wanted them to. OCP's electrical guns were still in the prototype phase, and while they were perfect against synthetic enemies like the Geth, Alex had still been a little skeptical about how successful they'd be against people.

After retrieving his arm, he slips into the hole he made by raising the container, asking the others, "How're things going out there?"

 **\- Just Outside Feros Colony -**

Liara thrust her free hand forward and a black ball of dark energy lists through the air. The Thorian, not knowing what the ball is, has the colonists try and shoot it. It doesn't get a chance to regret its choice as Kalros barks and the colonists it was controlling twitch and drop as their muscles spasm.

Then the singularity detonates and lifts three more colonists into the air, where Liara calmly puts each down with a single shot from her pistol. Wrex laughs, "Girl, you're getting to scare me!"

"I didn't think anything could scare you, Wrex," Garrus ducks and body checks a colonist that tried to brain him with a pipe, shooting the downed man to stun him before finishing, "Why is she the one that scares you?"

"You're C-Sec," Wrex grunts, turning Kalros in a wide arc as he looks for new targets, "You been working with rules your whole life. Blue here's been working with Spectres."

"I'm a Spectre!" Garrus objects, swapping his weapons and putting a trio of rounds into creepers that are trying to rise.

Wrex laughs, "I'll start believing that when you stop being such a damn girl scout!"

"A what?" Garrus asks, now really confused.

"You mean the humans with the cookies?" Liara asks, smiling.

"Yeah, them," Wrex nods to Liara, "Bunch o' proper kids, acting all prim and proper and trying to sell me cookies."

"You didn't buy their cookies!?" Liara asks, aghast, those things were delicious!

Wrex looks at her like she's insane, "Of course I bought the cookies… that's not the point!"

"What is the point?" Garrus asks

Wrex opens his mouth, stops, then closes it for a second and frowning. He finally admits, "I forgot."

" _Why are you guys talking about cookies?_ " Murphy's voice asks over the comms.

"Came up in conversation," Wrex coughs, and the trio step into the colony proper.

 **\- The Thorian -**

" _Looks like all we've got are those damn Creep things left,_ " Wrex notes, his voice crackling in Murphy's ear, " _You find the plant yet?_ "

"Yeah," Murphy stares up at the massive growth handing in this central spire, "Don't know if we can call it a plant though."

" _Why not?_ " Wrex asks, and his audio is cut by the sound of Kalros firing, " _How hard is it to call something a plant?_ "

"Sending visuals."

" _The fuck?_ "

" _Yeah, I'm with Wrex, the fuck?_ " Garrus agrees.

Liara even adds her two cents in, " _Indeed, this is like no other recorded species of plant ever discovered._ "

"Thanks guys," Murphy sighs, having hoped for more, "Any advice?"

" _Fire,_ " Wrex suggests, " _Lots of fire._ "

Robocop rolls his eyes and steps more fully into the massive chamber housing the Thorian, looking around and letting his target tracker identify anything that might pose a threat. The biggest threat to be posed looked to be from the hundreds of Creepers that his tracker was highlighting.

He'd need to use lethal rounds then, but not before figuring out what was going on with the monster plant, because it was currently choking on something. How a plant could choke, he had no idea, but it was clearly trying to vomit something up.

"You are unwelcome!" the green Asari the Thorian spits up declares. She looks to be in her Matron stages, and she was very naked.

Murphy replies, "I know, I've come to negotiate."

"What would a creature of meat and steel need to negotiate with one such as I?" The Asari asks, "I have already spoken with your kind!"

"No, you haven't," Murphy refutes, "You've spoken with thieves and traitors, enemies wielding fire."

At the mention of fire, the Asari flinches back, as he suspected she would. He looks up at the monstrous creature, "You are the sovereign power of this planet and it was invaded by interlopers and Geth."

"And they are now our thralls!" the Asari retorts, "And the Machines are stopped."

"By me and my team," Murphy tells her, or the Thorian, seeing as it was what was pulling the strings, "And so we have requests."

"Requests!?" The Asari snarls, "Saren had 'Requests!' When I gave him what he wanted, he tried to burn us with his machines!"

"Saren was here?" Alex blinks, they'd known the Geth were attacking, but that was about it, "What did he want?"

"I will tell you nothing!" the Asari screams, getting right up to his faceplate, "It is my cipher, not his! He stole it, for he broke our bargain."

"Saren is a secondary concern," Murphy sighs, "What I really need is for you to free the colonists."

"They are thralls," The Asari tells him, calmly, "They are mine."

"I am willing to make an exchange for them," Alex tells it, "As I said, I am here to negotiate."

 **\- Feros Colony -**

Wrex slams Kalros into the chest of another Creeper as it leaps at him, and then the deluge of fire splits the thing in half and reduces the ones behind it to chunks. Garrus fires three shots with his rifle and three creepers drop. Liara lets out a pulse of biotics to send the charging creepers careening away.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up," Liara pants, having used her powers more in the last half day than she had in a long time.

Wrex grunts in acknowledgement, "Yeah, these creeps keep coming."

"Not… anymore," Garrus notes, and the other two turn to look in the same direction as him.

There were dozens left, but they'd stopped their assault. They were standing still as stones, watching the three of them as they took this break to reload.

"Guess Alex is negotiating with the Thorian," Garrus notes.

"Yay," Wrex grumbles, he hadn't had this much fun against such poor odds in centuries, and it was good to feel the blood pumping.

Liara smiles, pulling out an emergency biotic bar, the kind that helps commandos get back to the front during battles, and takes a bite.

 **\- The Thorian -**

"What do you want?" The Asari asks.

Murphy resists the urge to roll his eyes, and instead just repeats himself, "I want you to release the people you have in your thrall and to let us leave the planet."

"And what will I receive in return?" It demands

"What do you want?"

The reply is swift, and almost exactly what he was hoping for, "I want to be left in peace!"

"I can make that happen," Murphy agrees, "I'm a Council Spectre, I have the authority to put planets under quarantine, make it so that if anyone comes here they're breaking the law. If they do that, they're yours."

"After you leave, any who come after would be mine?" The surprised rumble from the Thorian tells Murphy that it hadn't expected that. It probably expected that he'd want to take everything from it.

It was right now that Alex was very glad that he was a Spectre and not some administrator or beholden to anyone but the Council. If he'd made this declaration as anyone else, it would have been voided as soon as he left the planet, and he'd have ended up with a lot of intense scrutiny.

But the same thing had happened with the Yahg only a few decades ago. The Spectre sent to figure out what had happened to the diplomatic mission had dropped a very large explosive on the crashed Citadel ship and declared the planet quarantined. Once the Council read the reports and agreed, they'd even established a fleet to stop interference in Yahg society, or Yahg society from interfering in Council space.

He'd just be doing the same here, if the Thorian agreed.

He nods to the Asari, "Yes, any who come after I leave will be yours."

"When will you leave?" The Asari asks.

Murphy watches as another Asari is disgorged from the plant's tentacled mouth, a proper blue one, trying to stay focused, "As soon as a ship large enough to carry everyone arrives."

"When?"

"I'll need to check," Murphy tells it.

"Check."

He turns his comms back on and calls Garrus, "Team, I need you to connect with the shuttle and get an ETA from Joker on how long it'd take him to get here."

" _Right, shuttle isn't big enough for all the civies. Gimme a minute._ "

 **\- The Normandy -**

" _Commander, we've got a call from Garrus,"_ Joker's voice comes in over the intercom, " _Needs to know our ETA to Feros. I thought we were waiting for them at the Shadow Sea Relay?_ "

John looks up at the speaker and then back at the Rachni in its container, "Patch him through, Joker."

" _Will do._ "

There is a click as the signals are changed and John's omni-tool lights up, " _Shepard, we need the Normandy for pickup._ "

"What happened to the shuttle?" The Spectre has to ask.

" _Won't be big enough, we're evacuating the colony,_ " Garrus tells him.

" _Evacuating? The Geth are that bad?_ " Shepard rises to his feet with this question.

" _Not exactly_ ," Garrus sighs, " _Look, it's gonna sound really weird."_

"Any weirder than finding a Rachni?"

" _Maybe…_ "

"Save it for the briefing then," Shepard tells him, "We're on our way to the RV point, so we'll just pass it and pick you up at the colony."

" _Great, how long should that be?"_

"Joker, how long till we can reach Feros?"

The intercom buzzes as Joker responds, " _Fifteen Hours, plus or minus a half hour or so. That's with mental math, by the way, be in awe of my genius!"_

"Fifteen Hours, Garrus," Shepard tells his fellow Spectre.

 **\- The Thorian -**

"What are hours?" the green Asari asks

"Uh…." Murphy doesn't know how to properly respond to that, and looks down at the blue Asari for help.

The Matron looks up at him, then turns her eyes to the green version of herself, "We will be departed by the setting of the sun tomorrow."

"Good," Green nods, then waves a hand, "Begone, do not return lest I make you Thralls once more."

Murphy helps the Asari, garbed in commando gear, get to her feet and asks, "What's your name?"

"I am Shiala," The Asari tells him, "I served with Matriarch Benezi-Ah!"

Murphy catches her and holsters his gun, very glad that the commando didn't know he was helping hunt her boss down. Asari were a protective bunch, and hopefully she'd be safely behind a good protective barrier before she woke up.


	15. The Yellow Note

**Robocops and Robbers 15**

 **\- Normandy, Briefing Room -**

"That's an ugly plant," Ashley frowns, the image of the Thorian plastered up on the briefing screen.

The others nod, even the ones that had been on Feros for the mission. Only Alex and their prisoner had actually seen the creature, so all they had for experience was what he saw. They were are fairly sure the thing didn't get any better from other angles.

"Not to mention a terrible conversationalist," Murphy notes, a soft smirk on his face, "thankfully it was easy enough to talk to, though."

"Speaking of, what exactly did it want?" Kaiden asks.

Murphy gives some commands to the screen and the image of the Thorian is replaced with an image of Feros itself. The whole planet has a red outline to it, and in the six major languages of the galaxy are warning against entering the atmosphere.

"I've quarantined the planet," Murphy tells the team, "That should keep civilians away and anyone stupid enough to try and get down there now will have to deal with the Thorian themselves."

"That doesn't sound so hard," Wrex chuckles.

"It wouldn't have been," Murphy agrees, then he brings up the image of the Shiala clone, "If it weren't for this."

There are a few reactions to the image of the naked clone, the soldiers and Garrus don't really react too strongly due to preference or training. Liara and Tali both blush, though it's harder to tell with the Quarian. Wrex just chuckles more, "So what?"

"Those creepers," images of the plant zombies are posted next to the asari clone, "Were human clones. This one, the asari clone, I think it could use biotics."

"How could you tell?" Shepard asks, standing and moving up to the image. His eyes narrow as he stares at the face before he notes, "It looks like the asari we have in lockdown."

"Like I said, clone," Alex tells him.

"And asari are naturally biotic," Shepard frowns, getting it.

"Exactly."

"What am I missing?" Tali asks.

Shepard turns to her and explains, "If it could make as many clones of her as it did of the humans, then it'd have an instant army of biotics at the drop of a hat."

"The drop of a what?"

"Human idiom," Garrus tells her, "Means… really fast."

"like an infection through a system?"

"That'd be the Quarian equivalent, I guess," He agrees.

She nods, getting it now, "Dangerous."

"Exactly," Shepard nods, then commends Murphy, "Good call, with the quarantine, I'd've just killed it."

"Like you killed that Rachni in the hold?" Wex asks, he'd spotted the creature on his way up, and only his respect for Robocop had stopped him from pulling Kalros off his back.

"The Queen claims that Benezia is under some kind of mind control," Shepard tells him, not looking at Liara, despite the asari's sudden focus on him, "Until we know what it knows, we can't just kill it."

"My people killed more than enough to know how, Shepard, I'd be happy to show you," the krogan grunts.

"I don't doubt that," Shepard agrees, "And if it causes any trouble, feel free to remind it. But when it was talking to us it said that the Queens before it were under some kind of control, like how most of the asari with Benezia are."

"And why aren't those asari with us, then?" Wrex demands.

"Because the Normandy isn't big enough for a dozen or so corpses," Shepard shrugs.

Kaiden feels the need to jut in and adds, "The asari that survived our firefight are being held by Noveria police, Spectre Tela Vasir is on the way to pick them up for interrogation."

"And it really felt like the matriarch wasn't trying to kill us," Ashley points out, "From what you said, Liara, your mom trained most of the commandos under her, right?"

"Not most, all of them," Liara corrects, her brow furrowing.

"Exactly," the gunnery chief points at her, and the asari pulls back a bit as she continues, "Benezia wasn't fighting like the commandos. She was too flashy, to… big. It was like one of those villains from a Saturday morning cartoon."

"Boasts, brags, and too much bravado to actually kill the heroes?" Alex asks.

"Bingo."

"It's something we'll need to take into consideration," Shepard nods, "Especially if there's something out there powerful enough to control an entire species. If there's something out there, I want to know about it, I want to know how to kill it, and I want first crack at it."

"For now, everyone get some grub," Alex tells the team, "We need to debrief the Council and plan our next move."

The team get up together, heading for the door. Once everyone but the three Spectres are left, Shepard calls, "Joker, patch us through to the Council."

" _Will do, Commander_."

There is are a few seconds of buzz, then the figures of two of the Councilors come into focus. Tevos and Demos nod in greeting to them, with the asari nodding cordially, "Spectres."

"Councilors."

"Ma'am, Sir."

"Afternoon… right?" Garrus ventures.

Amused, Tevos nods, "Yes, Spectre, it's afternoon on the Citadel."

"Will Councilor Sparatus be joining us, Ma'am?" Shepard asks.

She sighs, "Unfortunately not, the Batarians are getting angry about something new, he's currently speaking with their representative in his office."

"Oof," Alex winces, "Please, pass along my condolences."

"We will," Tevos nods.

"We've read the reports from your latest missions," Demos speaks up for the first time, eyes locking with Shepard, "A Rachni, Spectre, really?"

The Commander nods, "Yes sir, I felt it the best tactical choice at the time. It wasn't hostile and it was giving information freely."

"Yes, understand reasoning, just unexpected that you would let it live, given your history."

"My history is with Batarians, sir," Shepard points out, "Not other species in general. If it tries anything, it's dust, but until then it's a guest on my ship."

"And once you have all the intel you need from it?" Tevos asks.

"We'll revisit its options," He tells her.

"Speaking of the intel it offered, your report mentioned that it said something about a 'yellow note?'" Demos asks.

Shepard nods, "Records from the Rachni War indicate that it was speculated that they communicated through either telepathy. When it started talking, it talked through the unconscious matriarch, so I give that thought some credence."

"And the 'yellow note?'"

"I think it was talking about mind control," he tells them.

"Impossible!" Tevos refutes, "multiple studies proved that the Rachni couldn't control other species, only that they could communicate amongst themselves."

"It wasn't talking about it being able to mind control other species," Shepard clarifies, "It was talking about something being able to mind control the entire Rachni species as well as the Matriarch."

Tevos and Demos look faintly sickened by the idea, and Demos asks, "Do you have any proof?"

"We have proof that mind control is at least possible," Garrus points out.

"Right, your mission to Feros," Demos nods, "You both noted that a fungal creature was able to take control of the colonists and forced them to attack you?"

"The Thorian is able to command other organic species with spores," Alex points out, "Like the cordyceps fungus that can be found in Earth's rainforests."

"That is disturbing," Tevos shudders, "Do you think it would be able to control a matriarch like Benezia?"

"I think it could," Alex agrees, "But I don't think it is. From what I could gather, its only interactions with modern society has been in the last year, and the only Asari it had contact with is Shiala."

"The asari you recovered from the Thorian?"

"Yes, and while the creature did say it had contact with Saren, it never said that it had contact with Benezia."

"Along with that," Garrus interrupts, "According to Lizbeth Baynham, an Exogeni whistleblower, the Thorian can only gain control of a subject after prolonged exposure."

"And word would have quickly spread if an asari Matriarch was staying on a human colony for an extended period of time," Demos notes, nodding.

"Quarantining the planet was a prudent move," Tevos nods as well, "Hopefully we will be able to create countermeasures to the Thorian's abilities. But for now we must table that discussion and move to your next course of action."

"We need to question Shiala and the Rachni Queen," Shepard tells them, "from there, we'll be able to determine if we have a clear path."

"Any news from Virmire?" Garrus asks.

"That is actually a matter we wanted to bring to you," Demos tells them, "We lost contact with the STG team sent to the planet."

"When did they last make contact?" Shepard asks.

"Thirteen hours ago," Demos tells them, "Their last check in before they were to jump the relay into the Hoc system."

"Twelve-hour check ins?" Shepard asks, "I thought STG standard was a full twenty-four hours?"

"Usually," The Salarian agrees, "But we are dealing with a rogue Spectre, not a Pirate cell."

Shepard nods in understanding, "So we head to Virmire, interrogate our prisoners en route?"

"That is what we would suggest," Tevos nods.

The three nod, and the conference ends.

"Alright, I'll tell Joker the new course," Garrus tells his fellows.

"I'll get to work questioning the asari," Murphy nods.

Shepard doesn't bother saying what he'll be doing, they already know.

 **\- Citadel, Councilor Demos's Office -**

"Troubling news," Demos frowns.

Tevos nods, "Rachni returning, mind controlling plants, Matriarchs under thrall… what's next?"

"Don't know, but do not look forward to finding out," Demos sighs.

The door slides open behind them, and they both turn to look at an irritated Sparatus. The turian is glaring down at the datapad in his hands, and if he had less control of himself it is clear that he'd be swearing up a storm.

Once he reaches them, he asks, "Our Spectres have verified their reports?"

"They have," Demos nods.

Sparatus sighs and moves over to the drinks cupboard, he pulls out two bottles. The dextro brandy he uses to pour himself a generous shot, and the levo wine he pours a pair of glasses for his companions, "How the hell did it come to this?"

"I wish I knew," Tevos sighs, picking up his wine.

"Spirits, it's like in one of those old Vids," Sparatus grumbles.

"The ones starring Robocop?" Demos asks, grinning.

The turian growls at him, but doesn't disagree. After a long pull of his glass he tells them, "the Batarians are planning something."

"What do you mean?" Tevos asks

Mouth flanges twitching, Sparatus tells her, "That four-eyed bastard was smug, too smug. He knew he was wasting my time, my energy, and my patience."

"You think they'll try for true independence?" Demos asks.

The Batarian Hegemony had seceded from the Citadel a few years after humans had entered the stage. They'd declared that the humans were stealing their worlds, taking their lands, and… most importantly… infringing on their cultural identity.

The Systems Alliance had taken one look at the Hegemony and declared war. Not war in the traditional sense, but the humans had an impressive concept called 'Cold War.' Apparently two of their superpowers back when they'd only existed on one planet had been at polar political opposites, but they were equal militarily. So, they had waged proxy wars for decades.

The Systems Alliance was doing much the same against the Hegemony, though now they fought with mercenary bands rather than small countries. The Blue Suns mercenary group had apparently been started on this front, though it had fallen to decadence when their founder had been betrayed.

Because of this hostility, the Hegemony had been slowly closing ranks around its territory for years, calling back those "pirates" still out in space that were really just members of their military on slave collecting duty.

If the Hegemony was finally breaking from the Citadel for good, it would be both a blessing and a curse.

It would be a blessing, as the Council would immediately be able to null any treaty that still allowed slavery. On top of that, they would finally be able to start considering new species for the Council.

It was nearly written in stone that there would only ever be three members species to the council, but most didn't realize that no new species had been admitted because the damned batarians would have demand a seat at the table, and as much as the turians, asari, and salarians might disagree on some things, they were all firmly entrenched in the belief that slavery was the kind of amoral they couldn't tolerate at the political table.

Asari may still have indentured servitude, turians may have had forced labor for prisoners, and nobody really wanted to talk about what the salarians did to their worst prisoners, but there were rules in place. With the batarians, there were no laws to protect the slaves. A little girl could be bought, raped to death, and left in a ditch, and the most a batarian could find themselves charged with under their laws was _littering_.

So… the Council was willing to take the blessing, but the curse that would come with the Hegemony finally leaving might not be enough to warrant it.

War. All out, full on, no holds barred.

The Systems Alliance had built their fleet to the tolerance level for the express purpose of destroying the Hegemony should they ever try to attack. When Elysium had happened, the only thing that stopped open war was a lot of politicking from Tevos's predecessor, so much so that it was what had lost the woman her position and opened it for Tevos to take her place.

Now…

It was entirely possible that war could break any day and none of them had seen it coming. It was a terrifying concept.

 **\- Normandy, Shuttle -**

Shiala woke to a gently prodding to her side. She groaned and tried to swipe at the offending implement and found that her hands were bound. Jolting up, the asari finds that she is in a small cell… no, the interior of a shuttle. From the feel of it, they'd probably removed the mass effect core from the vehicle, so she couldn't hijack it if she wanted.

Good thing she didn't want to.

Looking up at the face of the man who'd rescued her, a name drifts into her head, "Robocop."

"You've heard of me? Good," Alex nods.

"Not before," She says hesitantly, "Saren would rant about you, and your partner. He does not like you."

"I gathered as much," Alex nods, "Why'd you join him? He didn't seem that convincing when I talked to him?"

"I didn't join him," She tells him, "I followed my Matriarch. Benezia learned that Saren was planning something big, something deadly, and that he was looking for backing."

"So, she offered her resources?"

"Yes. The intention was to become his advisor and try to turn him from his path," Shiala nods, then shudders as she remembers the voices, "But… Saren had a way about him."

"What do you mean?"

"It was like… I couldn't help but agree with him," She says, "When he spoke on our ship, on a planet, his madness was clear as Thessia's seas. But… once he had you on his ship, everything he said was the truth."

"How was it the truth?" Alex asks.

"It was as though his thoughts clouded my own, blocked them, beat me down as a willing puppet took my place," She tells him.

"And you aren't feeling like that now?"

"No," She shakes her head, "When I was given to the Thorian, it took me for its own."

"How so?"

"Its thoughts became my thoughts, I was one with it," She shudders, "It was going to eat me."

"Eat you?"

"Like the Mirror Bulbs of Illium, or the venus fly trap of Earth," She gives examples, "If you had not come, I would be gone. When you came, it released me and I could think for myself for the first time in years."

"You mentioned something about a Cipher?" Alex asks.

"Yes, it was why Saren went to Feros," She tells him, "The Thorian is old, older than our recorded civilization and perhaps even older than the Protheans that claimed Feros for themselves."

"Which means?"

"The Thorian has consumed Protheans," She tells him, "It had their thoughts in its head as they died. It knows how to think like them, and if it knew, I knew. Saren wanted the Thorian to make a clone to transfer the knowledge of how to think like a Prothean to him."

"Did you?"

"My clone did," She tells him.

"Do you still have the ability?"

"I do."

"Good to know, we'll keep that in mind for the future," He notes, then asks, "What is Saren after?"

"Something called the 'Conduit,'" she explains, "It is the key to returning the Reapers."

"And what are the Reapers?"

"I am not sure. He did not need to tell me, so he did not. I caught glimpses, when the Thorian was sharing the Cipher with Saren, of giant creatures that could fall from the sky and fly through the blackness of space without the aid of machines."

"How do you mean?"

"I saw images of hands the size of cities crashing upon Prothean colonies, wars between Protheans puppetted by the Reapers. I wish I could give you more, Robocop, but my mind was not my own for years, and it will take a long time to piece everything back together."

"That's okay," he tells her, "you've been a big help, thank you."

"What will happen to me now?" She asks.

"For now, you'll be confined to the ship until we can hand you off to a Council specialist," He tells her, "You've been cooperative, and I hope you'll continue to be, so I won't be giving you to my fellow Spectres or the STG for interrogation."

"Thank you."

He nods, then moves to exit the shuttle. But before he can step out of the door, a shot rings out.

 _ **BAM!**_

 **\- Normandy, Cargo Bay -**

Shepard stood in front of the Rachni, wondering how he could question it. Thankfully, though, he didn't have to wonder long, as one of the prisoner Asari spoke up, " _You come with questions._ "

"I do," He nods, ignoring the grumbling behind him. Wrex had taken up residence at the other end of the cargo bay and was twirling Kalros's barrels threateningly while glaring at the alien bug.

" _Ask._ "

"What did you mean when you said Benezia was infected with a 'yellow note?'"

" _It is not easy, to explain to the blind._ "

"Try me."

" _Our world is sound, endless song that leads from one end of creation to the end. We are all part of the song, each a different note. You are a harsh red, the man of metal a soft blue, the Krogan a burning Orange. There is only one that can create the Yellow._ "

"The asari?"

" _No, it is not a natural note. The note breaks the song, interrupts. It demands to be played, rather than the true tone. Those with the Yellow note can no longer be a harsh red, a soft blue, or a burning orage. All there will be is yellow, all there will be is a sour note that breaks the song._ "

"You're saying that Matriarch Benezia isn't an asari?"

" _She was, once, but no longer. Her song has almost been snuffed out. It is too weak to play on its own and must beg us forgiveness while the yellow takes control._ "

"Why would she need forgiveness?"

" _Because she does not know we can recognize the yellow note, that the souring of the song has happened to our kind as well._ "

"How?"

" _War!_ "

"The Rachni War?"

" _The note needed to stop the species of the galaxy from expanding. So, it sent its agents to our burrows, infected the mothers of my mothers with the yellow note. Then it waited._ "

"Waited for some poor bastard to discover you."

" _Yes!_ "

"They hell does that mean?" Wrex demands, finally getting sick of playing audience, "My people waged war with yours, destroyed yours! And you're saying that was planned?"

" _No,_ " The queen's eyes turn to him, " _Krogan are strong, stronger than the note expected. When you killed our kind, it poisoned your minds as it did ours._ "

"What do you mean?" Shepard asks, he'd been about to chew Wrex out, but this was new information.

" _War!_ " the Queen snaps, " _The note cannot tolerate strength! It cannot tolerate resistance! It must break us before it consumes us!_ "

"Consumes u-"

 _ **BAM!**_

Shepard and Wrex hit the deck at the same time, but neither was the target. Rolling both raise their weapons, expecting to find one of the Asari with a weapon raised. Instead…

"Pressley?" Shepard blinks at his executive officer.

The man stood stiff as a board, with a shotgun raised in the direction of the Rachni queen.

Which finally topples over… dead.

 **\- Question for the Readers -**

How should I kill off on Virmire? Should I kill anyone off on Virmire? Please let me know who and how in the reviews, please! If I do it, everyone lives.


End file.
